Anthropomorphic Imagery In The Mesoamerican Highlands

Author : Brigitte Faugère,Christopher Beekman
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
Page : 419 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2020-02-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781607329954

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Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands by Brigitte Faugère,Christopher Beekman Pdf

In Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands, Latin American, North American, and European researchers explore the meanings and functions of two- and three-dimensional human representations in the Precolumbian communities of the Mexican highlands. Reading these anthropomorphic representations from an ontological perspective, the contributors demonstrate the rich potential of anthropomorphic imagery to elucidate personhood, conceptions of the body, and the relationship of human beings to other entities, nature, and the cosmos. Using case studies covering a broad span of highlands prehistory—Classic Teotihuacan divine iconography, ceramic figures in Late Formative West Mexico, Epiclassic Puebla-Tlaxcala costumed figurines, earth sculptures in Prehispanic Oaxaca, Early Postclassic Tula symbolic burials, Late Postclassic representations of Aztec Kings, and more—contributors examine both Mesoamerican representations of the body in changing social, political, and economic conditions and the multivalent emic meanings of these representations. They explore the technology of artifact production, the body’s place in social structures and rituals, the language of the body as expressed in postures and gestures, hybrid and transformative combinations of human and animal bodies, bodily representations of social categories, body modification, and the significance of portable and fixed representations. Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands provides a wide range of insights into Mesoamerican concepts of personhood and identity, the constitution of the human body, and human relationships with gods and ancestors. It will be of great value to students and scholars of the archaeology and art history of Mexico. Contributors: Claire Billard, Danièle Dehouve, Cynthia Kristan-Graham, Melissa Logan, Sylvie Peperstraete, Patricia Plunket, Mari Carmen Serra Puche, Juliette Testard, Andrew Turner, Gabriela Uruñuela, Marcus Winter

Author : Rubén G. Mendoza
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 530 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2024-06-30
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9783031366000

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Ritual Human Sacrifice in Mesoamerica by Rubén G. Mendoza Pdf

Author : Christopher S. Beekman
Publisher : University Press of Florida
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2019-10-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780813057231

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Migrations in Late Mesoamerica by Christopher S. Beekman Pdf

Bringing the often-neglected topic of migration to the forefront of ancient Mesoamerican studies, this volume uses an illuminating multidisciplinary approach to address the role of population movements in Mexico and Central America from AD 500 to 1500, the tumultuous centuries before European contact. Clarifying what has to date been chiefly speculation, researchers from the fields of archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics, ethnohistory, and art history delve deeply into the causes and impacts of prehistoric migration in the region. They draw on evidence including records of the Nahuatl language, murals painted at the Cacaxtla polity, ceramics in the style known as Coyotlatelco, skeletal samples from multiple sites, and conquest-era accounts of the origins of the Chichén Itzá Maya from both Native and Spanish scribes. The diverse datasets in this volume help reveal the choices and priorities of migrants during times of political, economic, and social changes that unmoored populations from ancestral lands. Migrations in Late Mesoamerica shows how migration patterns are vitally important to study due to their connection to environmental and political disruption in both ancient societies and today’s world. A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

Author : Andrew Holt
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 1069 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2023-06-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781440874246

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Religion and World Civilizations [3 volumes] by Andrew Holt Pdf

An indispensable resource for readers investigating how religion has influenced societies and cultures, this three-volume encyclopedia assesses and synthesizes the many ways in which religious faith has shaped societies from the ancient world to today. Each volume of the set focuses on a different era of world history, ranging through the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. Every volume is filled with essays that focus on religious themes from different geographical regions. For example, volume one includes essays considering religion in ancient Rome, while volume three features essays focused on religion in modern Africa. This accessible layout makes it easy for readers to learn more about the ways that religion and society have intersected over the centuries, as well as specific religious trends, events, and milestones in a particular era and place in world history. Taken as a a whole, this ambitious and wide-ranging work gathers more than 500 essays from more than 150 scholars who share their expertise and knowledge about religious faiths, tenets, people, places, and events that have influenced the development of civilization over the course of recorded human history.

Author : Barbara Baert
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 235 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2022-02-07
Category : Art
ISBN : 9783110760620

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Looking Into the Rain by Barbara Baert Pdf

Humankind has a special relationship with rain. The sensory experience of water falling from the heavens evokes feelings ranging from fear to gratitude and has inspired many works of art. Using unique and expertly developed art-historical case studies – from prehistoric cave paintings up to photography and cinema – this book casts new light on a theme that is both ecological and iconological, both natural and cultural-historical. Barbara Baert’s distinctive prose makes Looking Into the Rain. Magic, Moisture, Medium a profound reading experience, particularly at a moment when disruptions of the harmony among humans, animals, and nature affect all of us and the entire planet. Barbara Baert is Professor of Art History at KU Leuven. She teaches in the field of Iconology, Art Theory & Analysis, and Medieval Art. Her work links knowledge and questions from the history of ideas, cultural anthropology and philosophy, and shows great sensitivity to cultural archetypes and their symptoms in the visual arts.

Author : Timothy R. Pauketat
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Climatic changes
ISBN : 9780197645109

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Gods of Thunder by Timothy R. Pauketat Pdf

A sweeping account of Medieval North America when Indigenous peoples confronted climate change. Few Americans today are aware of one of the most consequential periods in ancient North American history-the Medieval Warm Period of seven to twelve centuries ago (AD 800-1300 CE). On every page of this book, readers will be led down the same paths walked by Indigenous people a millennium ago, some trod by Spanish conquistadors just a few centuries later. The book will follow the footsteps of priests, pilgrims, traders, and farmers who took great journeys, made remarkable pilgrimages, and migrated long distances to new lands. Along the way, readers will discover a new history of a continent that, like today, was being shaped by climate change-or controlled by ancient gods of wind and water. Through such elemental powers, the history of Medieval America was a physical narrative, a long-term natural and cultural experience in which Native people were entwined long before Christopher Columbus arrived or Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs. The book's dozen chapters cover a lot of ground, focusing on some remarkable parallels between pre-contact American civilizations separated by a thousand miles or more. Key archaeological sites are featured in every chapter, all of which link in an evidentiary trail a great religious movement that swept Mesoamerica, the Southwest, and the Mississippi valley, sometimes because of worsening living conditions and sometimes by improved agricultural yields thanks to global warming a thousand years ago.

Author : Alan R. Sandstrom,Pamela Effrein Sandstrom
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
Page : 481 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2023-01-20
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781646423309

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Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain by Alan R. Sandstrom,Pamela Effrein Sandstrom Pdf

An ethnographic study based on decades of field research, Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain explores five sacred journeys to the peaks of venerated mountains undertaken by Nahua people living in northern Veracruz, Mexico. Punctuated with elaborate ritual offerings dedicated to the forces responsible for rain, seeds, crop fertility, and the well-being of all people, these pilgrimages are the highest and most elaborate form of Nahua devotion and reveal a sophisticated religious philosophy that places human beings in intimate contact with what Westerners call the forces of nature. Alan and Pamela Sandstrom document them for the younger Nahua generation, who live in a world where many are lured away from their communities by wage labor in urban Mexico and the United States. Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain contains richly detailed descriptions and analyses of ritual procedures as well as translations from the Nahuatl of core myths, chants performed before decorated altars, and statements from participants. Particular emphasis is placed on analyzing the role of sacred paper figures that are produced by the thousands for each pilgrimage. The work contains drawings of these cuttings of spirit entities along with hundreds of color photographs illustrating how they are used throughout the pilgrimages. The analysis reveals the monist philosophy that underlies Nahua religious practice in which altars, dancing, chanting, and the paper figures themselves provide direct access to the sacred. In the context of their pilgrimage traditions, the ritual practices of Nahua religion show one way that people interact effectively with the forces responsible for not only their own prosperity but also the very survival of humanity. A magnum opus with respect to Nahua religion and religious practice, Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain is a significant contribution to several fields, including but not limited to Indigenous literatures of Mesoamerica, Nahuatl studies, Latinx and Chicanx studies, and religious studies.

Author : Julia Guernsey
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2020-02-27
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781108478991

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Human Figuration and Fragmentation in Preclassic Mesoamerica by Julia Guernsey Pdf

Explores the social significance of representation of the human body in Preclassic Mesoamerica.

Author : Prudence M. Rice
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2019-04-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781607328896

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Anthropomorphizing the Cosmos by Prudence M. Rice Pdf

Anthropomorphizing the Cosmos explores the sociocultural significance of more than three hundred Middle Preclassic Maya figurines uncovered at the site of Nixtun-Ch'ich' on Lake Petén Itzá in northern Guatemala. In this careful, holistic, and detailed analysis of the Petén lakes figurines—hand-modeled, terracotta anthropomorphic fragments, animal figures, and musical instruments such as whistles and ocarinas—Prudence M. Rice engages with a broad swath of theory and comparative data on Maya ritual practice. Presenting original data, Anthropomorphizing the Cosmos offers insight into the synchronous appearance of fired-clay figurines with the emergence of societal complexity in and beyond Mesoamerica. Rice situates these Preclassic Maya figurines in the broader context of Mesoamerican human figural representation, identifies possible connections between anthropomorphic figurine heads and the origins of calendrics and other writing in Mesoamerica, and examines the role of anthropomorphic figurines and zoomorphic musical instruments in Preclassic Maya ritual. The volume shows how community rituals involving the figurines helped to mitigate the uncertainties of societal transitions, including the beginnings of settled agricultural life, the emergence of social differentiation and inequalities, and the centralization of political power and decision-making in the Petén lowlands. Literature on Maya ritual, cosmology, and specialized artifacts has traditionally focused on the Classic period, with little research centering on the very beginnings of Maya sociopolitical organization and ideological beliefs in the Middle Preclassic. Anthropomorphizing the Cosmos is a welcome contribution to the understanding of the earliest Maya and will be significant to Mayanists and Mesoamericanists as well as nonspecialists with interest in these early figurines

Author : M. Charlotte Arnauld,Christopher Beekman,Grégory Pereira
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2021-02-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781646420735

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Mobility and Migration in Ancient Mesoamerican Cities by M. Charlotte Arnauld,Christopher Beekman,Grégory Pereira Pdf

Mobility and Migration in Ancient Mesoamerican Cities is the first focused book-length discussion of migration in central Mexico, west Mexico and the Maya region, presenting case studies on population movement in and among Classic, Epiclassic, and Postclassic Mesoamerican societies and polities within the framework of urbanization and de-urbanization. Looking beyond the conceptual dichotomy of sedentism versus mobility, the contributors show that mobility and migration reveal a great deal about the formation, development, and decline of town- and city-based societies in the ancient world. In a series of data-rich chapters that address specific evidence for movement in their respective study areas, an international group of scholars assesses mobility through the isotopic and demographic analysis of human remains, stratigraphic identification of gaps in occupation, and local intensification of water capture in the Maya lowlands. Others examine migration through the integration of historic and archaeological evidence in Michoacán and Yucatán and by registering how daily life changed in response to the influx of new people in the Basin of Mexico. Offering a range of critical insights into the vital and under-studied role that mobility and migration played in complex agrarian societies, Mobility and Migration in Ancient Mesoamerican Cities will be of value to Mesoamericanist archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and bioarchaeologists and to any scholars working on complex societies. Contributors: Jaime J. Awe, Meggan Bullock, Sarah C. Clayton, Andrea Cucina, Véronique Darras, Nicholas P. Dunning, Mélanie Forné, Marion Forest, Carolyn Freiwald, Elizabeth Graham, Nancy Gonlin, Julie A. Hoggarth, Linda Howie, Elsa Jadot, Kristin V. Landau, Eva Lemonnier, Dominique Michelet, David Ortegón Zapata, Prudence M. Rice, Thelma N. Sierra Sosa, Michael P. Smyth, Vera Tiesler, Eric Weaver

Author : Colin Renfrew,Iain Morley,Michael Boyd
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781107143562

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Ritual, Play, and Belief in Evolution and Early Human Societies by Colin Renfrew,Iain Morley,Michael Boyd Pdf

This book presents unique new insights into the development of human ritual and society through our heritage of play and performance.

Author : Peter F. Jimenez,Peter Jimenez Betts
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2020-08-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9781108481120

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The Mesoamerican World System, 200–1200 CE by Peter F. Jimenez,Peter Jimenez Betts Pdf

This is the first application of the comparative approach of world-systems analysis in Mesoamerican archaeology.

Author : Julia Guernsey
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2012-07-23
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781107012462

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Sculpture and Social Dynamics in Preclassic Mesoamerica by Julia Guernsey Pdf

This book examines the functions of sculpture during the Preclassic period in Mesoamerica and its significance in statements of social identity. Julia Guernsey situates the origins and evolution of monumental stone sculpture within a broader social and political context and demonstrates the role that such sculpture played in creating and institutionalizing social hierarchies. This book focuses specifically on an enigmatic type of public, monumental sculpture known as the "potbelly" that traces its antecedents to earlier, small domestic ritual objects and ceramic figurines. The cessation of domestic rituals involving ceramic figurines along the Pacific slope coincided not only with the creation of the first monumental potbelly sculptures, but with the rise of the first state-level societies in Mesoamerica by the advent of the Late Preclassic period. The potbellies became central to the physical representation of new forms of social identity and expressions of political authority during this time of dramatic change.

Author : Mary Ellen Miller
Publisher : Thames & Hudson
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2019-06-11
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780500775035

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Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmec to Aztec (Sixth) (World of Art) by Mary Ellen Miller Pdf

Mary Ellen Miller’s rich visual and scholarly survey of pre-Hispanic art and architecture, including the most recent archaeological finds. Expanded and revised in its sixth edition, The Art of Mesoamerica surveys the artistic achievements of the high pre-Hispanic civilizations of Central America—Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacan, Toltec, and Aztec—as well as those of their lesser-known contemporaries. Providing an in-depth examination of central works, this book guides readers through the most iconic palaces, pyramids, sculptures, and paintings. From the Olmec colossal head 5 recovered from San Lorenzo to the Aztec calendar stone found in Mexico City’s Zocalo in 1790, this book reveals the complexity and innovation behind the art and architecture produced in pre-Hispanic civilizations. This new edition incorporates fifty new lavish color images and extensive updates based on the latest research and dozens of recent discoveries, particularly in Maya art, where excavations at Teotihuacan, the largest city of Mesoamerica, and Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztecs, have yielded new sculptures.

Author : Lewis Spence
Publisher : New York : AMS Press
Page : 88 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 1908
Category : Social Science
ISBN : UOM:39015012956085

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The Popol Vuh by Lewis Spence Pdf