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Maya at the Playa
American Foreign Academic Research and The Archaeological Institute of America
September 30 - October 3, 2010
Lectures
Dark Secrets of Midnight Terror Cave
Allan Cobb
Midnight Terror Cave is located in Central Belize. The cave was the site of ritual activity by the ancient Maya. After a three year project, the cave has yielded both answers and even more unanswered questions. You will have an opportunity to hear about the discoveries in this cave and how they were made.
Angkor and Maya: A Tale of Two Civilizations
Dr. Michael D. Coe
In world history, the two greatest tropical forest cultures were the Khmer civilization of Angkor, in Southeast Asia, and the Classic Maya. Both arose in lowland environments with summer monsoon rains alternating with a winter dry season. Although Angkor is ten times larger than the greatest Maya city, both had a remarkably similar, low-density kind of urbanism. The Maya cities, however, are far older than the Khmer ones, the Khmer imperial state was not founded until AD 802, by which time the Classic Maya had started their decline; yet the causes behind the great collapse of both civilizations seem to be almost identical. Valuable lessons can be drawn from the comparative study of these two brilliant cultures – their rise, their period of prosperity, and their tragic downfall.
Six Honest Serving-Men: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Ancient Maya Warfare
Dr. Harri Kettunen
University of Helsinki
Ancient Maya warfare has been the topic of countless studies throughout the history of Maya research. The focus of these studies has customarily concentrated on archaeological and / or epigraphic evidence, with a few studies employing multiple sources and several disciplines. This presentation examines the topic from a point of view of a variety of disciplines, including archaeology, epigraphy, linguistics, iconography, colonial history, geography, and one largely overlooked discipline, military sciences.
The Biography of an Early Classic Ritual Clown Incense Burner
Dr. Traci Ardren
University of Miami
The object biography approach to studying Maya art allows us to ask questions about the “lifecycle” of a ceramic vase, such as who made it and where and how did it arrive in a museum collection. This presentation will focus on the exploration and recovery of the life history of an unusual Early Classic Maya incense burner in the form of a sacred clown or priest of God N, the aged earth deity. Throughout Mesoamerica ritual clowning was used to mark transitional periods such as the end of the calendar year, and ritual clowns held key roles in the performance of ceremonies meant to resolve the potential chaos that accompanies beginnings and endings. Using the approach of object biography, this lecture will explore the “life histories” of this piece, from its manufacture, use and deposit in ancient times to its recovery, transport and eventual accession into the Lowe Art Museum where it is on display now.
At the Heart of Aguateca, Peten, Guatemala: Religion and Politics Centering on the Main Chasm
Dr. Reiko Ishihara
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
Archaeological investigations in the Main Chasm, a deep chasm that runs through the Late Classic (AD 600–900) Maya site of Aguateca, Peten, Guatemala, revealed evidence of a variety of ritual practices, suggesting that chasms, like caves, represent potent cosmological and religious places where ancestral and supernatural spirits can be reached. This counters previous suggestions that the chasm may have served defensive purposes at a time of turbulent politics in the Petexbatun region. Evidence of the diverse activities carried out in distinct spaces of the chasm will be presented, contextualized within the political and settlement history of Aguateca.
Jaina: The Portal to the Underworld
Dr. Armando Anaya Hernandez
Universidad Autonoma de Campeche
Jaina is an artificial Island off the coast of Campeche. It has acquired a well deserved fame because of the hundreds of exquisite figurines that have been recovered from the site. Throughout time archaeologists have proposed that Jaina was a major ceremonial center and a port of trade. However, in this lecture I will present a series of hypotheses that reconsider fundamental aspects regarding the creation, function, and geographical location of Jaina during pre-Columbian times. Recent review of burial contexts and the number of individuals interred in them shows that the vast majority documented to date is infants and children placed in a fetal position, within large unslipped jars or alone and with few grave goods. These contexts tend to be found in terrain-leveling platform fill, low platforms, and in close proximity to the ballcourt. While other authors have emphasized the nature of a high pressure demographical situation for the pre-Columbian residents there and in other surrounding areas within the Yucatan Peninsula as an answer to this problem, it would be a worthwhile endeavor to consider another interpretation which revolves around a mythical theme frequently found in Maya iconography. If this be the case, then the myth or a version of this could have been restaged during specific annual time frames through ritual infant sacrifice at Jaina. Including information from urban design elements and the surrounding natural and cultural environments to the former helps better explain the ideological reason for building an island in this definitive place, instead of other former functional interpretations to date.
John Lloyd Stephens, the Father of Mesoamerican Archaeology
Dr. Steve Glassman
Embry-Riddle University
John Lloyd Stephens, born 1805 in New Jersey, died of a tropical disease in1852 in New York, regarded himself as a lawyer and a travel writer. He was also a diplomat of note; Martin Van Buren sent him to Central America to negotiate for rights to a trans-isthmus canal. In terms of his own time, his most successful venture was that of vice-president and then president of the Panama railroad that was completed just in time to accommodate the 49ers heading to California. It became one of the most lucrative 19th century corporations. To modern folk, however, Stephens is known as the Father of Mesoamerican Archaeology. He set out in 1839 with British artist Frederick Catherwood to find a lost civilization in the jungles of Central America. He not only brought to the attention of the larger world the civilization of the Maya, a term he coined for the culture as a whole by adapting the Yucatec word, but he also established an empirical, measured basis for a study of the culture which few 19th century Mayanists emulated. This session will discuss Stephens travels in 1839 and 1840 and discuss his contributions to Maya study.
Ancient Maya Cave Art and its Application for Determining Prehistoric Spheres of Interaction
Dr. Jaime Awe and Dr. Christophe Helmke
A decade of intensive research by the Western Belize Regional Cave Project has recorded substantial evidence of ancient Maya cave art in Belize. Our research also established that the corpus of cave art in this area was produced on diverse media, and that the images represented were executed in styles that range from the abstract to the naturalistic. In spite of the diversity in style and execution, a careful study of the corpus indicates the recurrence of particular images, and notes that much of the subject matter is intrinsically associated with pervasive underworld themes. Equally significant is that the spatial distribution of specific themes may reflect discrete spheres of interaction, world view and ritual practice.
El Mirador and Teotihuacan: The Cultural Foundations of the Classic Maya
Stanley Guenter
Southern Methodist University
Just as we look to ancient Greece and Rome for the cultural foundations of western civilization, including our art and political institutions, so the ancient Maya had cultures that they revered for their contributions to Classic civilization. Disparate sources of evidence suggest that the Classic Maya especially recognized two sources for the political legitimacy and cultural foundations of their world; El Mirador and Teotihuacan. While the Late Classic Maya recognized and venerated both of these ancient cities in a similar manner to the way the Aztecs revered the ruined Tollan, evidence from El Mirador itself suggests an episode of intense rivalry in the Early Classic between the Teotihuacanos and those Maya still carrying out their ceremonies in the Preclassic ruins.
Maya Creation Centers and the Sacrum Bone: Connecting the Human Body to the Nighttime Sky
Jim Reed
Institute of Maya Studies
Based on the work of Brian Stross, UT at Austin, entitled The Mesoamerican Sacrum Bone: Doorway to the Otherworld, this colorful presentation links body symbolism, religious experience and visual representation through a consideration of the sacrum bone, the surrounding pelvic girdle and the spinal column in cosmological traditions of Mesoamerica. The idea is put forth that the ancient Maya envisioned the spine as a serpent, a microcosm of the World Tree or axis and that the skull and sacrum were thought to correlate to the galactic “portals” where the ecliptic crosses the Milky Way. “Related to reproduction, fertility and reincarnation … the sacrum represented one index of the more generalized but variously manifested ‘portals’ or doorways permitting translocation of shamans, spirits and deities between worlds or levels of the cosmos”. Reed shares visuals of the continuing artistic expression of aspects of this concept in Mesoamerican sacred artwork, with images from polychrome ceramics as well as carvings in stone and jadeite than span the ancient Olmec, Izapan and Maya experience.
Revisiting an Early Maya Expedition
Keith Merwin
In 1909, Dr Alfred M. Tozzer and Raymond E. Merwin left Harvard University on expedition for the Peabody Museum. The main goal of their expedition was to produce a map of Tikal and complete the work needed to publish the Museum’s report started by Teobert Maler. During the expedition they visited the site of Nakum, a visit that would provide the information needed to produce a report in the Museum Memoirs on that site. The discovery of the city of Holmul was the high point for Raymond of the trip as he noted in his personal journal.
Using information from Raymond’s unpublished journal, in 2009, Keith Merwin retraced the expedition, visiting both Boston and Central America. Starting with a visit to Harvard University to dig through the Peabody Museum's archives, Keith found records of the official reports prepared by Raymond following each expedition. Many items of Holmul ceramics brought back by Raymond have been on display at the Museum since the 1930s. The trip to Guatemala included visits to Nakum, Yaxha, Tikal and Holmul. Dr Francisco Estrada-Belli of Boston University, who heads the Holmul Archaeological Project, was host for the visit to Holmul. At Nakum, Guatemalan archaeologist Vilma Fialko provided a tour of the lab and artifact storage area. The presentation summarizes the information gathered during these trips.
Trees and Time: How the Mesoamerican Unified Field Theory Maps the Calendar, Colors, Creations, Trees, Gods, Birds, Body Parts and the Body Politic onto the Cosmic Quincunx
Dr. Mark Van Stone
Dr. Van Stone's lectures romp through the extraordinary World-View of the Ancient Maya, Nahuatl, and Mixtec. While investigating the Maya Prophecies of 2012, he discovered several secrets, much more interesting than just another End-of-the-world prophecy. Find out how Lucrezia Borgia is just three degrees of separation from the Mexican flag and the Sarcophagus of Pakal in Palenque. Why did the Aztecs spill so much sacrificial Blood? How IS a raven like a writing-desk?