Western Mesoamerican Calendars and Writing Systems

Western Mesoamerican Calendars and Writing Systems PDF Author: Mikkel Bøg Clemmensen
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1803274867
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mesoamerica is one of the few places to witness the independent invention of writing. Bringing together new research, papers discuss the writing systems of Teotihuacan, Mixteca Baja, the Epiclassic period and Aztec writing of the Postclassic. These writing systems represent more than a millennium of written records and literacy in Mesoamerica.

Western Mesoamerican Calendars and Writing Systems

Western Mesoamerican Calendars and Writing Systems PDF Author: Mikkel Bøg Clemmensen
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1803274867
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mesoamerica is one of the few places to witness the independent invention of writing. Bringing together new research, papers discuss the writing systems of Teotihuacan, Mixteca Baja, the Epiclassic period and Aztec writing of the Postclassic. These writing systems represent more than a millennium of written records and literacy in Mesoamerica.

Palaces and Courtly Culture in Ancient Mesoamerica

Palaces and Courtly Culture in Ancient Mesoamerica PDF Author: Julie Nehammer Knub
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784910511
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume collects eight recent and innovative studies spanning the breadth of Mesoamerica, from the Early Classic metropolis of Teotihuacan, to Tenochtitlan, the Late Postclassic capital of the Aztec, and from the arid central Mexican highlands in the west to the humid Maya lowlands in the east.

Maya Calendar Origins

Maya Calendar Origins PDF Author: Prudence M. Rice
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292774494
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Maya Political Science: Time, Astronomy, and the Cosmos, Prudence M. Rice proposed a new model of Maya political organization in which geopolitical seats of power rotated according to a 256-year calendar cycle known as the May. This fundamental connection between timekeeping and Maya political organization sparked Rice's interest in the origins of the two major calendars used by the ancient lowland Maya, one 260 days long, and the other having 365 days. In Maya Calendar Origins, she presents a provocative new thesis about the origins and development of the calendrical system. Integrating data from anthropology, archaeology, art history, astronomy, ethnohistory, myth, and linguistics, Rice argues that the Maya calendars developed about a millennium earlier than commonly thought, around 1200 BC, as an outgrowth of observations of the natural phenomena that scheduled the movements of late Archaic hunter-gatherer-collectors throughout what became Mesoamerica. She asserts that an understanding of the cycles of weather and celestial movements became the basis of power for early rulers, who could thereby claim "control" over supernatural cosmic forces. Rice shows how time became materialized—transformed into status objects such as monuments that encoded calendrical or temporal concerns—as well as politicized, becoming the foundation for societal order, political legitimization, and wealth. Rice's research also sheds new light on the origins of the Popol Vuh, which, Rice believes, encodes the history of the development of the Mesoamerican calendars. She also explores the connections between the Maya and early Olmec and Izapan cultures in the Isthmian region, who shared with the Maya the cosmovision and ideology incorporated into the calendrical systems.

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology PDF Author: Deborah L. Nichols
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199996342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 996

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed by regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies--from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations--and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.

An Introduction to Mesoamerican Philosophy

An Introduction to Mesoamerican Philosophy PDF Author: Alexus McLeod
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009218778
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Get Book Here

Book Description
A comprehensive and accessible introduction to the philosophical traditions of the precolonial Mesoamerican peoples, including the Maya, Aztecs, and Mixtecs.

Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures

Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures PDF Author: Helaine Selin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 140204559X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2428

Get Book Here

Book Description
Here, at last, is the massively updated and augmented second edition of this landmark encyclopedia. It contains approximately 1000 entries dealing in depth with the history of the scientific, technological and medical accomplishments of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. The entries consist of fully updated articles together with hundreds of entirely new topics. This unique reference work includes intercultural articles on broad topics such as mathematics and astronomy as well as thoughtful philosophical articles on concepts and ideas related to the study of non-Western Science, such as rationality, objectivity, and method. You’ll also find material on religion and science, East and West, and magic and science.

Cycles of the Sun, Mysteries of the Moon

Cycles of the Sun, Mysteries of the Moon PDF Author: Vincent H. Malmström
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292743122
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book Here

Book Description
The simple question "How did the Maya come up with a calendar that had only 260 days?" led Vincent Malmström to discover an unexpected "hearth" of Mesoamerican culture. In this boldly revisionist book, he sets forth his challenging, new view of the origin and diffusion of Mesoamerican calendrical systems—the intellectual achievement that gave rise to Mesoamerican civilization and culture. Malmström posits that the 260-day calendar marked the interval between passages of the sun at its zenith over Izapa, an ancient ceremonial center in the Soconusco region of Mexico's Pacific coastal plain. He goes on to show how the calendar developed by the Zoque people of the region in the fourteenth century B.C. gradually diffused through Mesoamerica into the so-called "Olmec metropolitan area" of the Gulf coast and beyond to the Maya in the east and to the plateau of Mexico in the west. These findings challenge our previous understanding of the origin and diffusion of Mesoamerican civilization. Sure to provoke lively debate in many quarters, this book will be important reading for all students of ancient Mesoamerica—anthropologists, archaeologists, archaeoastronomers, geographers, and the growing public fascinated by all things Maya.

The Presence of Teotihuacan in the Cuitzeo Basin, Michoacán, Mexico

The Presence of Teotihuacan in the Cuitzeo Basin, Michoacán, Mexico PDF Author: Agapi Filini
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Get Book Here

Book Description
Traditionally, the large, monumental site of Teotihuacan has been seen as being the core in a core-periphery model, controlling excahange networks and exercising political control over a passive and subordinate periphery. This study questions whether this was indeed the case with regard to relations between Teotihuacan and the Cuitzeo Basin in western Mexico. Through analysing ceramic and iconographic evidence, as well as control over resources such as obsidian, Filini argues that the sites in the Cuitzeo Basin participated in the Teotihuacan ideological system on a very selective basis and therefore maintained some degree of autonomy.

Cosmology, Calendars, and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient Mesoamerica

Cosmology, Calendars, and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient Mesoamerica PDF Author: Anne S. Dowd
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1457193752
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cosmology, Calendars, and Horizon-Based Astronomy in Ancient Mesoamerica is an interdisciplinary tour de force that establishes the critical role astronomy played in the religious and civic lives of the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica. Providing extraordinary examples of how Precolumbian peoples merged ideas about the cosmos with those concerning calendar and astronomy, the volume showcases the value of detailed examinations of astronomical data for understanding ancient cultures. The volume is divided into three sections: investigations into Mesoamerican horizon-based astronomy, the cosmological principles expressed in Mesoamerican religious imagery and rituals related to astronomy, and the aspects of Mesoamerican calendars related to archaeoastronomy. It also provides cutting-edge research on diverse topics such as records of calendar and horizon-based astronomical observation (like the Dresden and Borgia codices), iconography of burial assemblages, architectural alignment studies, urban planning, and counting or measuring devices. Contributors—who are among the most respected in their fields— explore new dimensions in Mesoamerican timekeeping and skywatching in the Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacano, Zapotec, and Aztec cultures. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of anthropology, archaeology, art history, and astronomy.

Deep Waters

Deep Waters PDF Author: Christopher B. Teuton
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496211111
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
Weaving connections between indigenous modes of oral storytelling, visual depiction, and contemporary American Indian literature, Deep Waters demonstrates the continuing relationship between traditional and contemporary Native American systems of creative representation and signification. Christopher B. Teuton begins with a study of Mesoamerican writings, Diné sand paintings, and Haudenosaunee wampum belts. He proposes a theory of how and why indigenous oral and graphic means of recording thought are interdependent, their functions and purposes determined by social, political, and cultural contexts. The center of this book examines four key works of contemporary American Indian literature by N. Scott Momaday, Gerald Vizenor, Ray A. Young Bear, and Robert J. Conley. Through a textually grounded exploration of what Teuton calls the oral impulse, the graphic impulse, and the critical impulse, we see how and why various types of contemporary Native literary production are interrelated and draw from long-standing indigenous methods of creative representation. Teuton breaks down the disabling binary of orality and literacy, offering readers a cogent, historically informed theory of indigenous textuality that allows for deeper readings of Native American cultural and literary expression.