The Inscriptions and Monumental Art of Dos Pilas, Guatemala

The Inscriptions and Monumental Art of Dos Pilas, Guatemala PDF Author: Stephen D. Houston
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dos Pilas Site (Guatemala)
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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The Inscriptions and Monumental Art of Dos Pilas, Guatemala

The Inscriptions and Monumental Art of Dos Pilas, Guatemala PDF Author: Stephen D. Houston
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dos Pilas Site (Guatemala)
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description


Hieroglyphs and History at Dos Pilas

Hieroglyphs and History at Dos Pilas PDF Author: Stephen D. Houston
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This pioneering study uses the inscriptions and monumental art of Dos Pilas in the Peten region of Guatemala to reconstruct the history and fate of a crucial Maya-dynasty. Houston's innovative approach combines data derived from the hieroglyphs with the findings of archaeology and anthropology to provide a detailed picture of Dos Pilas' development as a dynastic center. Houston reveals that the rulers of Dos Pilas were conquerors who established and maintained a regional polity. The records of their deeds on monuments at Dos Pilas and sites nearby contain a wealth of detail that matches anything found at other major Maya centers.

Heart of Creation

Heart of Creation PDF Author: Andrea Joyce Stone
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817311386
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
This accessible, state-of-the-art review of Mayan hieroglyphics and cosmology also serves as a tribute to one of the field's most noted pioneers. The core of this book focuses on the current study of Mayan hieroglyphics as inspired by the recently deceased Mayanist Linda Schele. As author or coauthor of more than 200 books or articles on the Maya, Schele served as the chief disseminator of knowledge to the general public about this ancient Mesoamerican culture, similar to the way in which Margaret Mead introduced anthropology and the people of Borneo to the English-speaking world. Twenty-five contributors offer scholarly writings on subjects ranging from the ritual function of public space at the Olmec site and the gardens of the Great Goddess at Teotihuacan to the understanding of Jupiter in Maya astronomy and the meaning of the water throne of Quirigua Zoomorph P. The workshops on Maya history and writing that Schele conducted in Guatemala and Mexico for the highland people, modern descendants of the Mayan civilization, are thoroughly addressed as is the phenomenon termed "Maya mania"—the explosive growth of interest in Maya epigraphy, iconography, astronomy, and cosmology that Schele stimulated. An appendix provides a bibliography of Schele's publications and a collection of Scheleana, written memories of "the Rabbit Woman" by some of her colleagues and students. Of interest to professionals as well as generalists, this collection will stand as a marker of the state of Mayan studies at the turn of the 21st century and as a tribute to the remarkable personality who guided a large part of that archaeological research for more than two decades.

The Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project

The Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project PDF Author: Arthur Andrew Demarest
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 9780826514431
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Then, based on the project's findings, Demarest presents interpretive reconstructions of the linked histories of the Pasion River kingdoms and correlates these interpretations with the variable evidence and culture-histories of other regions of the Classic Maya lowlands. He points out that only through linking such accurate regional culture-histories can we begin to understand the eighth- through tenth-century changes in Classic Maya civilization. The volume describes how the Petexbatun project addressed this challenge in its research design, structure, and large, multicentered zone of study. Building on the previous twenty years of Harvard research in adjacent zones, the Vanderbilt projects succeeded in reconstructing events and processes throughout the Pasion River Valley, the largest single inland trade route of the ancient Maya world.

Thinking, Recording, and Writing History in the Ancient World

Thinking, Recording, and Writing History in the Ancient World PDF Author: Kurt A. Raaflaub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118413113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 542

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Book Description
Thinking, Recording, and Writing History in the Ancient World presents a cross-cultural comparison of the ways in which ancient civilizations thought about the past and recorded their own histories. Written by an international group of scholars working in many disciplines Truly cross-cultural, covering historical thinking and writing in ancient or early cultures across in East, South, and West Asia, the Mediterranean, and the Americas Includes historiography shaped by religious perspectives, including Judaism, early Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism

Death and the Classic Maya Kings

Death and the Classic Maya Kings PDF Author: James L. Fitzsimmons
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292781989
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Like their regal counterparts in societies around the globe, ancient Maya rulers departed this world with elaborate burial ceremonies and lavish grave goods, which often included ceramics, red pigments, earflares, stingray spines, jades, pearls, obsidian blades, and mosaics. Archaeological investigation of these burials, as well as the decipherment of inscriptions that record Maya rulers' funerary rites, have opened a fascinating window on how the ancient Maya envisaged the ruler's passage from the world of the living to the realm of the ancestors. Focusing on the Classic Period (AD 250-900), James Fitzsimmons examines and compares textual and archaeological evidence for rites of death and burial in the Maya lowlands, from which he creates models of royal Maya funerary behavior. Exploring ancient Maya attitudes toward death expressed at well-known sites such as Tikal, Guatemala, and Copan, Honduras, as well as less-explored archaeological locations, Fitzsimmons reconstructs royal mortuary rites and expands our understanding of key Maya concepts including the afterlife and ancestor veneration.

A Natural History of Peace

A Natural History of Peace PDF Author: Thomas Gregor
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 9780826512802
Category : Peace
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
A stimulating and innovative consideration of the concept, causes, and practice of peace in societies both ancient and modern, human and primate. We know a great deal about aggression, conflict, and war, but relatively little about peace, partially because it has been such a scarce phenomenon throughout history and in our own times. Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace requires special relationships, structures, and attitudes to promote and protect it. A Natural History of Peace provides the first broadly interdisciplinary examination of peace as viewed from the perspectives of social anthropology, primatology, archeology, psychology, political science, and economics. Among other notable features, this volume offers: a major theory concerning the evolution of peace and violence through human history; an in-depth comparative study of peaceful cultures with the goal of discovering what it is that makes them peaceful; one of the earliest reports of a new theory of the organization and collapse of ancient Maya civilization; a comparative examination of peace from the perspective of change, including the transition of one of the world's most violent societies to a relatively peaceful culture, and the decision-making process of terrorists who abandon violence; and a theory of political change that sees the conclusion of wars as uniquely creative periods in the evolution of peace among modern nations.

Epigraphy

Epigraphy PDF Author: Victoria Reifler Bricker
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292776500
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
This volume is designed to recognize the important role that epigraphy has come to play in Middle American scholarship and to document significant achievements in three areas: dynastic history, phonetic decipherment, and calendrics.

Latin American Horizons

Latin American Horizons PDF Author: Don Stephen Rice
Publisher: Dumbarton Oaks
ISBN: 9780884022077
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Maya Palaces and Elite Residences

Maya Palaces and Elite Residences PDF Author: Jessica Joyce Christie
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292782624
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Maya "palaces" have intrigued students of this ancient Mesoamerican culture since the early twentieth century, when scholars first applied the term "palace" to multi-room, gallery-like buildings set on low platforms in the centers of Maya cities. Who lived in these palaces? What types of ceremonial and residential activities took place there? How do the physical forms and spatial arrangement of the buildings embody Maya concepts of social organization and cosmology? This book brings together state-of-the-art data and analysis regarding the occupants, ritual and residential uses, and social and cosmological meanings of Maya palaces and elite residences. A multidisciplinary team of senior researchers reports on sites in Belize (Blue Creek), Western Honduras (Copan), the Peten (Tikal, Dos Pilas, Aguateca), and the Yucatan (Uxmal, Chichen-Itza, Dzibilchaltun, Yaxuna). Archaeologist contributors discuss the form of palace buildings and associated artifacts, their location within the city, and how some palaces related to landscape features. Their approach is complemented by art historical analyses of architectural sculpture, epigraphy, and ethnography. Jessica Joyce Christie concludes the volume by identifying patterns and commonalties that apply not only to the cited examples, but also to Maya architecture in general.