The Legacy of Mesoamerica

The Legacy of Mesoamerica PDF Author: Robert M. Carmack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317346793
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization summarizes and integrates information on the origins, historical development, and current situations of the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. It describes their contributions from the development of Mesoamerican Civilization through 20th century and their influence in the world community. For courses on Mesoamerica (Middle America) taught in departments of anthropology, history, and Latin American Studies.

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.

Women and Knowledge in Mesoamerica

Women and Knowledge in Mesoamerica PDF Author: Paloma Martinez-Cruz
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816538506
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Paloma Martinez-Cruz argues that the medicine traditions of Mesoamerican women constitute a hemispheric intellectual lineage that continues to thrive despite the legacy of colonization. Martinez-Cruz asserts that indigenous and mestiza women healers are custodians of a knowledge base that remains virtually uncharted. The few works looking at the knowledge of women in Mesoamerica generally examine only the written—even academic—world, accessible only to the most elite segments of (customarily male) society. These works have consistently excluded the essential repertoire and performed knowledge of women who think and work in ways other than the textual. And while two of the book’s chapters critique contemporary novels, Martinez-Cruz also calls for the exploration of non-textual knowledge transmission. In this regard, the book's goals and methods are close to those of performance scholarship and anthropology, and these methods reveal Mesoamerican women to be public intellectuals. In Women and Knowledge in Mesoamerica, fieldwork and ethnography combine to reveal women healers as models of agency. Her multidisciplinary approach allows Martinez-Cruz to disrupt Euro-based intellectual hegemony and to make a case for the epistemic authority of Native women. Written from a Chicana perspective, this study is learned, personal, and engaging for anyone who is interested in the wisdom that prevailing analytical cultures have deemed “unintelligible.” As it turns out, those who are unacquainted with the sometimes surprising extent and depth of wisdom of indigenous women healers simply haven’t been looking in the right places—outside the texts from which they have been consistently excluded.

The Legacy of Mesoamerica

The Legacy of Mesoamerica PDF Author: Robert M. Carmack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138403772
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization summarizes and integrates information on the origins, historical development, and current situations of the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. It describes their contributions from the development of Mesoamerican Civilization through 20th century and their influence in the world community. For courses on Mesoamerica (Middle America) taught in departments of anthropology, history, and Latin American Studies.

Archaeometallurgy in Mesoamerica

Archaeometallurgy in Mesoamerica PDF Author: Aaron N. Shugar
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607322102
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Presenting the latest in archaeometallurgical research in a Mesoamerican context, Archaeometallurgy in Mesoamerica brings together up-to-date research from the most notable scholars in the field. These contributors analyze data from a variety of sites, examining current approaches to the study of archaeometallurgy in the region as well as new perspectives on the significance metallurgy and metal objects had in the lives of its ancient peoples. The chapters are organized following the cyclical nature of metals--beginning with extracting and mining ore, moving to smelting and casting of finished objects, and ending with recycling and deterioration back to the original state once the object is no longer in use. Data obtained from archaeological investigations, ethnohistoric sources, ethnographic studies, along with materials science analyses, are brought to bear on questions related to the integration of metallurgy into local and regional economies, the sacred connotations of copper objects, metallurgy as specialized crafting, and the nature of mining, alloy technology, and metal fabrication.

Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage

Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage PDF Author: David Carrasco
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780870816376
Category : Indians of Mexico
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
For more than a millennium the great Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan (c. 150 B.C.E. - 750 C.E.) has been imagined and reimagined by a host of subsequent cultures, including our own. Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage engages the subject of the unity and diversity of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica by focusing on the classic heritage of this ancient city. This new volume is the product of several years of research by members of Princeton University's Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project and Mexico's Proyecto Teotihuacán. Offering a variety of disciplinary perspectives - including the history of religions, anthropology, archaeology, and art history - and a wealth of new data, Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage examines Teotihuacan's rippling influence across Mesoamerican time and space, including important patterns of continuity and change, and its relationships, both historical and symbolic, with Tenochtitlan, Cholula, and various Maya communities. The contributors to Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage offer a wide range of individual interpretations, but they agree that Teotihuacan, more than any other pre-Hispanic center, was a paradigmatic source that formed the art and architecture, cosmology and ritual life, and conceptions of urbanism and political authority for significant parts of the Mesoamerican world. This great city achieved the prestige of being the site of the creation of the cosmos and of effective social and political space in Mesoamerica through its capacity to symbolize, perform, and export its imperial authority. These essays reveal the different ways in which Teotihuacan's classic heritage both fed and fed on the dynamic interactivity of the entire area. Whether or not a paradigm shift in Mesoamerican studies is taking place, certainly a new contextual understanding of Teotihuacan and the diversities and unities of Mesoamerica is emerging in these pages.

Aztec Civilization

Aztec Civilization PDF Author: Hourly History
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
Discover the remarkable history of the Aztec Civilization...The Aztec Empire dominated Mesoamerica for a relatively short time-less than one hundred years-but it is remembered today more than other ancient cultures in the region which sustained for much longer. Partly that is because this was a relatively recent culture which was widely reported by the first Europeans to make contact with it. Another one of the reasons is because the Aztecs have become indelibly associated with human sacrifice. The sheer scale of these rituals caused horror and fascination in the first Europeans to encounter it. Anything up to eighty thousand victims may have been brutally killed during a single religious festival, and up to a quarter of a million people may have been sacrificed each year of Aztec rule. The seemingly insatiable need for victims to placate the Aztec gods even led to wars whose purpose was not conquest or plunder but obtaining sacrificial victims. Yet there was a great deal more to the Aztecs than human sacrifice. These people created a complex society and one of the largest cities in the world. They developed a sophisticated set of laws and made notable advances in astronomy and agriculture. In the course of less than one hundred years, the Aztecs came to dominate Mesoamerica and created an empire which looked set to continue for a very long time indeed. Then the first Spanish conquistadors arrived, and within less than two years, the Aztec Empire had been completely destroyed. This is the story of the rise and fall of the Aztec Empire. Discover a plethora of topics such as Origins The Creation of Tenochtitlan Aztec Weapons and Warfare The Triple Alliance The City of Tenochtitlan The Spanish Conquest And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on the Aztec Civilization, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!

Golden Kingdoms

Golden Kingdoms PDF Author: Joanne Pillsbury
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606065483
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
This volume accompanies a major international loan exhibition featuring more than three hundred works of art, many rarely or never before seen in the United States. It traces the development of gold working and other luxury arts in the Americas from antiquity until the arrival of Europeans in the early sixteenth century. Presenting spectacular works from recent excavations in Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico, this exhibition focuses on specific places and times—crucibles of innovation—where artistic exchange, rivalry, and creativity led to the production of some of the greatest works of art known from the ancient Americas. The book and exhibition explore not only artistic practices but also the historical, cultural, social, and political conditions in which luxury arts were produced and circulated, alongside their religious meanings and ritual functions. Golden Kingdoms creates new understandings of ancient American art through a thematic exploration of indigenous ideas of value and luxury. Central to the book is the idea of the exchange of materials and ideas across regions and across time: works of great value would often be transported over long distances, or passed down over generations, in both cases attracting new audiences and inspiring new artists. The idea of exchange is at the intellectual heart of this volume, researched and written by twenty scholars based in the United States and Latin America.

The Huasteca

The Huasteca PDF Author: Katherine A. Faust
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806149574
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
In The Huasteca: Culture, History, and Interregional Exchange, a range of authorities on art, history, archaeology, and cultural anthropology bring long-overdue attention to the region’s rich contributions to the pre-Columbian world. They also assess how the Huasteca fared from colonial times to the present. The authors call critical, even urgent attention to a region highly significant to Mesoamerican history but long neglected by scholars.

Sorcery in Mesoamerica

Sorcery in Mesoamerica PDF Author: Jeremy D. Coltman
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 160732945X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Approaching sorcery as highly rational and rooted in significant social and cultural values, Sorcery in Mesoamerica examines and reconstructs the original indigenous logic behind it, analyzing manifestations from the Classic Maya to the ethnographic present. While the topic of sorcery and witchcraft in anthropology is well developed in other areas of the world, it has received little academic attention in Mexico and Central America until now. In each chapter, preeminent scholars of ritual and belief ask very different questions about what exactly sorcery is in Mesoamerica. Contributors consider linguistic and visual aspects of sorcery and witchcraft, such as the terminology in Aztec semantics and dictionaries of the Kaqchiquel and K’iche’ Maya. Others explore the practice of sorcery and witchcraft, including the incorporation by indigenous sorcerers in the Mexican highlands of European perspectives and practices into their belief system. Contributors also examine specific deities, entities, and phenomena, such as the pantheistic Nahua spirit entities called forth to assist healers and rain makers, the categorization of Classic Maya Wahy (“co-essence”) beings, the cult of the Aztec goddess Cihuacoatl, and the recurring relationship between female genitalia and the magical conjuring of a centipede throughout Mesoamerica. Placing the Mesoamerican people in a human context—as engaged in a rational and logical system of behavior—Sorcery inMesoamerica is the first comprehensive study of the subject and an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Mesoamerican culture and religion. Contributors: Lilián González Chévez, John F. Chuchiak IV, Jeremy D. Coltman, Roberto Martínez González, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, Cecelia F. Klein, Timothy J. Knab, John Monaghan, Jesper Nielsen, John M. D. Pohl, Alan R. Sandstrom, Pamela Effrein Sandstrom, David Stuart