MIKE RUGGERI’S MESOAMERICA AND ANCIENT AMERICA LECTURES, CONFERENCES AND EXHIBITS
_______________________________________________
LECTURES AND CONFERENCES
Monday, November 16, 7:00 PM-9:00 PM
Smithsonian Seminar
“Machu Picchu—Terraces of Enlightenment”
$27-$40
The great Inca citadel Machu Picchu sits high in the Peruvian Andes, having emerged from beneath the canopy of a rainforest after being hidden for nearly 400 years. Take a vicarious journey to an architectural and archeological wonder—a fortress that survived to become one of the world's greatest enigmas. Through the eyes of photographer Mike Torrey, who visited and photographed Machu Picchu during the June and December solstices, and writer Marie Arana, who lived as a child on the Peruvian coast, explore Machu Picchu's history and culture, its vegetation and wildlife, and what it reveals about the lives of the Inca. Learn how Machu Picchu's architecture incorporates both scientific and spiritual principles: for example, the way first rays of the sun—worshipped by the Incas as the god Inti— enter the Temple of the Sun and mark the arrival of the winter solstice.
Arana is a writer at large for the Washington Post. Torrey is an architectural photographer. His book Stone Offerings: Machu Picchu's Terraces of Enlightenment (Lightpoint Press) is available for signing after the program.
S. Dillon Ripley Center
1100 Jefferson Drive, SW
Metro: Smithsonian Mall Exit (Blue/Orange)
http://residentassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?performanceNumber=218714
November 16, 7:30 PM
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society Lecture
"Cerros de Trinceras & Warfare in Sonora, Mexico"
Randall McGuire
Duval Auditorium,
University Medical Center,
1501 North Campbell Avenue (north of Speedway)
Tucson, Arizona
http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/aahs/lectures.shtml
November 16, 6:00 PM
Southwest Seminars Lecture
"Paleo-Indian Environment of the Great Basin; The Bonneville Rockshelter"
Dr. Ted Goebel, Center for the Study of the First Americans
Hotel Santa Fe
1501 Paseo de Peralta
Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://southwestseminars.org/SouthwestSeminars.org/Mother_Earth,_Father_Sky_2009.html
November 16, 7:30 PM
Santa Fe Archaeology Society Lecture
"Archaeology Between Mesoamerica and the Pueblo World"
Tim Maxwell, Director Emeritus, OAS
(505) 473-2880
Courtyard by Marriott,
3347 Cerrillos Rd,
Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://sfarchaeology.org/html/calendar.html
November 18, 8:00-9:30 PM
Institute of Maya Studies Lecture
“Calakmul: The Power of the Snake Kingdom”
Marta Barber
Discovered by biologist Cyrus Lundell of the Mexical Exploitation
Chicle Company on December 29, 1931, the find was reported to Sylvanus
Morley, then working in Chichén Itzá, in 1932. Lundell named the site
Calakmul, to mean the City of Two Adjacent Pyramids (Ca two; lak adjacent and mul mound or pyramid.
Calakmul administered a large domain, with its emblem glyph of the
head of a snake amply found around the site. The Snake Polity saw its
peak in the Classic period during which time it became a rival of
Tikal. Several wars were conducted between these two great super
powers. One of the largest Maya cities, so far more than 6,750
structures have been identified. Calakmul is also home to the biggest
Maya pyramid, Structure II, at 55 meters high.
Located in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the largest tropical forest
reserve in Mexico, Calakmul is a treasure trove of Maya history. The
site extends over 10 square miles in the middle of the reserve’s 1.8
million acres of forests in the State of Campeche.
Miami Science Museum,
3280 South Miami Avenue, across from Vizcaya;
Maya Hotline: 305-235-1192.
Subscribe to the new full-color e-mailed version of our monthly IMS
Explorer newsletter at:
www.instituteofmayastudies.org
Thursday, November 19, 1:15 PM
British Museum Gallery Talk
"Commerce, Trade and Exploration in Aztec Times”
Our topic in 2010 will focus on new developments in the study of early Maya iconography and writing, focusing on the sites of Kaminaljuyu, Takalik Abaj, Izapa, San Bartolo and others.
Room 1
British Museum
London, England
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/november/exploration_in_aztec_times.aspx
November 19-21
"Animal Symbolism in the Mesoamerican Codex Tradition"
The aim of the symposium is to lead to high quality instructional
sessions that integrate language arts, social studies and visual arts.
The speakers, representing research institutions in the U.S. and
Mexico, are experts on languages, archaeology and zoo-archaeology, and
the art of the three best-known regions that produced books – commonly
referred to as codices – prior to European contact. These areas were
occupied by the Maya of Yucatan, the Mixtec speakers of southern
Mexico, and the Aztecs, who lived on the site that is now Mexico City.
The event is built around nine presentations addressing the meanings
of animals in pre-Historic Mexico and the continuation of these
cultural traditions beyond the conquest.
The symposium is an opportunity for members of academia to collaborate
with teachers so that the topic can be introduced in classrooms in New
Mexico.
Though attendance is free and open to the public, preregistration is
required, as seating is limited.
Latin American and Iberian Institute,
801 Yale NE,
University of New Mexico Main Campus
Albuquerque, New Mexico
http://laii.unm.edu/animal-symbolism/registration/
November 20, 7:30 PM
Maya Society of Minnesota Lecture
"Performing Rulership during the Late Preclassic: Landscape, Themes, and Symbols from the Pacific Piedmont"
This presentation will focus primarily on the site of Izapa, considering how space was structured through the erection of stela and altar monuments, and the implications of the highly narrative imagery found on these sculptures. I will focus in particular on the images that feature avian transformation, which referenced a ruler's ability to communicate with the supernatural realm. Discussion will also turn to other symbols featured on the monuments that further illustrate rulers' emphasis on their supernatural powers as a foundation for claims to political authority
Julia Guernsey
Drew Science 118 (south of Old Main),
Hamline University
St. Paul, Minnesota
www.hamline.edu/mayasociety/MSM_LIST_lectures_and_worksh_Fall_2009.htm
Saturday, November 21, 10:00 AM–5:00 PM
A Study Day at the British Museum
"Moctezuma’s Feast"
Explore the role of food and feasting in Aztec (Mexica) culture in this study day. Food offers a fascinating window into the world of the Aztecs
PROGRAMME
10.00–10.15
Opening remarks
Dr Rebecca Earle, Warwick University
10.15–11.00
"The origins of ‘Mexican’ food"
Professor Jeffrey Pilcher, University of Minnesota
11.00–11.45
"Maize in Mesoamerican mythology"
Professor Alfredo López Austin, UNAM 12.00–13.30
Lunch break – please make your own arrangements
13.30–14.15
"The view from the Metate: women and the Aztec world"
Dr Camilla Townsend, Rutgers
14.15–15.00
"Aztec banqueting: objects and artefacts"
Dr Colin McEwan, British Museum 15.00–15.30
Afternoon break
15.30–16.15
"The chocolate drink"
Dr Rebecca Earle, Warwick University
16.15–17.00
"Mexican cuisine today"
Patricia Quintana, Mexican chef and author
17.00–17.15
Concluding remarks
Dr Rebecca Earle, Warwick University
Please note that each presentation will last about twenty minutes, to allow ample opportunity to ask questions of the speaker, and for discussion.
BP Lecture Theatre
£28, concessions £18
British Museum
London, England
http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Moctezumas feast programme FINAL.pdf
November 21, 9:00 AM
Maya Society of Minnesota Workshop
"Stepping Back in Time: Middle Preclassic Ritual and Power at La Blanca"
This workshop will present recent data from ongoing archaeological investigations at the Middle Preclassic site of La Blanca, Guatemala, which is located on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. La Blanca flourished between 900-600 BC, and was the major regional power along the coast and piedmont. Upon its decline, sites such as Izapa rose to power within the same region. A quatrefoil-shaped altar found at La Blanca that anticipates images seen at Izapa, San Bartolo, Takalik Abaj, and other Late Preclassic sites, will form the basis of discussion and illustrate Middle Preclassic antecedents for ritual patterns and imagery better known from later periods
Julia Guernsey
Giddens Learning Center 6s (the Anthropology Lab),
Hamline University(southeast corner of Hewitt and Snelling),
St.Paul, Minnesota
www.hamline.edu/mayasociety/MSM_LIST_lectures_and_worksh_Fall_2009.htm
November 28, 10:30 AM-5:00 PM
Institute of Archaeology UCL, London
South American Archaeology Seminar
Everyone is welcome. Please reply to b.sillar@ucl.ac.uk if you wish to confirm your participation and order your lunch. A contribution of £5 towards the cost of coffee, tea, lunch & administration will be required on the day.
10.30 am Coffee
11.00 am Bill Sillar (UCL), Sara Lunt (English Heritage) and Rob Ixer (Good Provenance) Potential sources and implications of the choice of andesite temper within classic style Inka pottery from Cuzco, did they really have to work that hard?
11.40 a.m. Diura Thoden Van Velzen (Independent / UCL) Zudañez Archaeological Project, Bolivia: work in progress
Lunch (12.30-1.30 p.m.)
1.30 p.m. William Brooks (U.S. Geological Survey) Mercury and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Ancient Perú
2.10 p.m. Mercedes Okumura (Cambridge University) Mid-late Holocene Brazilian shellmounds: diet and disease
Tea (3.0-3.30 p.m.)
3.30 p.m. Carlos E. Rengifo (University of East Anglia) Tombs of Specialists at San Jose de Moro: the Construction of Social Identity during the First Millennium in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru
4.10 p.m. Quetta Kaye (UCL) Evidence for inter-island transport of heirlooms: luminescence dating and petrographic analysis of ceramic inhaling bowls from Carriacou, West Indies.
This event is Co-sponsored by: The Institute for the Study of the Americas & The Institute of Archaeology, UCL
Institute of Archaeology UCL, 34 Gordon Square, London.
Dr. Bill Sillar
Institute of Archaeology,
University College London,
31-34 Gordon Square,
London WC1H 0PY ENGLAND
Ph: (0)20 7679 1538
Fax: (0)20 7383 2572
November 30, 6:00 PM
Southwest Seminars Lecture
"Political Ecology of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico"
Dr. Paul Minns
Hotel Santa Fe
1501 Paseo de Peralta
Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://southwestseminars.org/SouthwestSeminars.org/Mother_Earth,_Father_Sky_2009.html
December 6, 3:00 PM
Chicago Archaeology Society Lecture
"Giving New Meaning to Jaina (Maya) Figurines"
Dr. Donald McVicker
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave
First Floor Meeting Room
Evanston, IL
http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Archaeological-Society/calendar/10215137/
Sunday, December 6, 3:00pm
AIA Lecture
“The Petroglyphs of the Nasca Valley and "The Nasca Lines"
Ana Nieves
The Grande River System in Peru's Department of Ica is best known for the large scale drawings on the desert floor collectively known as "The Nasca Lines." The name "Nasca Lines" is a broad generalization, however, often used to describe a wide variety of geoglyphs in various styles. In fact, geoglyphs of different types can be found not only in the Nasca Valley and the adjacent pampas (elevated plateaus), but also in the northernmost valleys of the river system. In recent years, the area's geoglyphs have been studied alongside smaller scale examples of rock art, i.e. petroglyphs. That research has taken place primarily in the Palpa Valley, where petroglyph sites are well-known. As part of her doctoral research, Nieves conducted a rock art survey of the Nasca Valley and was able to document 26 petroglyph sites in this valley alone. Nasca Valley petroglyphs were clearly comparable to Paracas and Nasca iconography and, interestingly, some of this valley's petroglyph motifs are also designs found among the "Nasca Lines." Ana Nieves' lecture provides an overview of this rock art survey, and focuses in particular on the relationship between petroglyph sites and the area's geoglyphs.
Dr. Ana Nieves is Assistant Professor in the Art Department, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.
Location: Room G90,
Sabin Hall, UW-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
http://www4.uwm.edu/archlab/AIA/lectures.cfm
December 8, 7:00pm
Pensacola Archaeological Society Lecture
“Wakulla in the Sandhills: Analysis of a Late Weeden Island Site in the Northwest Florida Interior Uplands,”
Bowden Bld., 120 E Church St.,
Pensacola, Florida
http://uwf.edu/archaeology/archsoc/
Wednesday, December 9, 10:00 AM-4:00 PM
Museum of the American Indian Symposium
"Surveying the Legacy of the Inka: Archaeological Research along the Qhapaq ñan"
CostFree; first come, first served
Noted scholars, including Gary Urton, Roberto Bárcena, Victoria Castro, Jose Pino,Monica Bolaños, and Mauricio Uribe, offer illustrated lectures focusing on the magnificent road network that the Inka (Inca) developed more than 500 years ago.
American Indian Museum
Rasmuson Theater, 1st Floor
Washington DC
http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=events&second=dc
December 10, 7:00 PM
"Outsmarting Rising Water for 8000 Years: An Archaeology of Ancient Cultures of the St. Johns River Valley"
Dr. Kenneth Sassaman
Dr. Sassaman, Associate Professor in the UF Department of Anthropology, will speak as part of the Evening at the Whitney Series, sponsored by Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience. The Public is Welcome
The talk will draw on our nearly 10 years of fieldwork in the middle St.Johns, as well as some recent analyses, that help us to understand how Archaic communities dealt with a constantly drowning environment. Dr. Sassaman will briefly relate this work to some of the modern issues surrounding science and politics of climate change.
Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience
9505 Ocean Shore Blvd,
Marineland, Florida
December 12, 1:30 PM
Pre-Columbian Society at the University Museum Lecture
"Creating an Empire: Spectacle, Theatricality, Performance and Power in the Inka State”
Lawrence Coben
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology
3260 South Street,
Philadelphia, PA
http://www.precolumbian.org/othermeetings.HTM
December 17, 7:00 PM
Central Gulf Coast Archaeological Society Lecture
"Rethinking the Significance and Long-Term Histories of Archaic Shell Mounds along the Middle St. Johns River."
Asa Randall
Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center
800 Weedon Dr NE
St Petersburg, Florida
http://www.cgcas.org/index.html
Dec 21, 7:30 PM
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society Lecture
“Fast Approaching Zero: Tree-Ring Dating at Mesa Verde”
Stephen Nash
Duval Auditorium,
University Medical Center,
1501 North Campbell Avenue (north of Speedway)
Tucson, Arizona
http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/aahs/lectures.shtml
Thursday, January 7, 1:15 PM
British Museum Lunchtime Lecture
“The Search for Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec Feathered Serpent Deity”
Eleanor Wake, former lecturer at Birkbeck, re-examines the legend of the returning Feathered Serpent and the fall of Moctezuma using native and Spanish accounts.
Admission free, booking advised
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
British Museum
London, England
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/january/the_search_for_quetzalcoatl.aspx
JANUARY 7-9, 2010
INSTITUTE OF ANDEAN STUDIES
49TH ANNUAL MEETING
Room 112,
Wurster Hall,
University of California,
Berkeley, California
http://www.instituteofandeanstudies.org/meetings.html
January 8-9, 2010
11th Southwest Symposium
"Building Transnational Archaeologies"
The 11th biennial Southwest Symposium will be held in Hermosillo, Sonora, México. The Centro INAH Sonora will host the meeting that will be held on the University of Sonora Campus and at the Centro INAH Sonora. In the tradition of past meetings, the 11th Southwest Symposium will provide a forum for archaeologists and other scholars to discuss innovative ideas and to develop networks for anthropological research in the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. We have organized the symposium to explore key topics in substantial depth and to provide ample time for discussion among all who attend.
For most of the 20th century, a handful of US institutions, their professors and students dominated archaeology in the southwestern United States. The development of contract archaeology broadened the extent of and altered the practice of archaeology in the southwest U.S. but reinforced it as a nationalist practice. By the end of the 20 th century, however, a nationalist view of the region had become parochial. The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia established regional centers, museums and expanded research in the northwest of México. Slightly later, an Indigenous archaeology developed as Indian Nations established their own archaeological programs, goals, and methods. Each of these "national" archaeologies focus on different regions, make different assumptions, asks different questions, seeks different answers, emphasize different methods and embraces different theories or worldviews. The 11th Southwest Symposium will further discussions of how to transform these national archaeologies into transnational archaeologies.Transnational archaeologies reach beyond or transcend national boundaries and they do so in numerous ways. They imply a broad vision of historical and cultural processes in the Southwest/Northwest that is not artificially limited by political, cultural, or linguistic borders. They necessarily entail a multi-sited archaeology where researchers work in different "nations". They stand strong when their foundations rest on collaborations across cultural groups. They require archaeologists to reexamine the contributions that archaeology can make to society. They expand the archaeology of the Southwest/Northwest linguistically, culturally and regionally.
1. West and North México
The international border between México and the United States and the culture area border that separates our region from Mesoamerica has long hampered our understanding of the archaeology of the Southwest/Northwest. The archaeology of West and North México does not fit easily into both culture areas and the degree of fit changes over time. Developments in these areas had direct impacts on the Southwest/Northwest. Indeed, "Mesoamerican influences" on the north most likely originated in these regions and not the core of Mesoamerica . The session will allow scholars working in West and North México to share information and interact with Southwest/Northwest archaeologists.
José Luis Punzo
Michael Ohnersorgen
2. AD 1450 to AD 1540: The Lost Century
In the century AD 1450 to AD 1540, most of the Southwest/Northwest suffered a significant demographic collapse and transformation of cultures. Scores of regional sequences ended and village based agriculture ceased in areas where it had been practiced for hundreds of years. Outside of the Pueblos , this is a lost century making it difficult to link archaeological traditions and modern Indian Nations and to understand the processes that created the ethnographically known Southwest/Northwest. The international border has hampered our understanding of this century because it structures research but has no meaning for the historical and cultural processes we wish to understand. Indian Nations hold very different perspectives on this century than either U.S. or Mexican scholars.
John Carpenter
Anna Neuzil
3. Collaborating Across Cultures
Collaborations that reach beyond or transcend national and cultural boundaries are key to transnational archaeologies. Collaboration implies the integration of goals, interests, and practices between the individuals and/or social groups that work together. It entails a dialogue that goes beyond an instrumentalist concern with resolving a conflict or respecting rights and responsibilities. It requires humility, patience, listening, careful consultation, equality, and respect. Collaboration should be transformative of the parties involved. Each party brings different resources, skills, knowledge, authority and/or interests to a collaborative labor. Collaboration involves the melding of these unique qualities into common goals and practices. This session will address collaboration both across the international frontier and between scholars and Indian Nations.
Andrew Darling
Davina Two Bears
4. Archaeology and Society
The relationship of archaeology to society varies among the nations of the Southwest/Northwest. This session will explore these relationships in the United States , in México, and in Indian Nations. Issues will include public programs, education, heritage, and identity. The papers will be aimed towards a discussion that compares and contrasts these issues in different nations with the goal of transcending and reaching beyond national interests.
Elizabeth Bagwell
Cesar Villalobos
University of Sonora Campus and at the Centro INAH Sonora
Hermosillo, Sonora, México
http://sw-symposium.binghamton.edu/ingles pagina/introd.htm
January 12, 7:00pm
Pensacola Archaeological Society Lecture
“Swift Creek Culture (AD200-850) on the Atlantic Coast,”
Bowden Bld., 120 E Church St.,
Pensacola, Florida
http://uwf.edu/archaeology/archsoc/
January 18, 2010, 7:30 PM
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society Lecture
"Facts & Fiction of Ancient Puebloan Cannibalism"
John Kantner
Duval Auditorium,
University Medical Center,
1501 North Campbell Avenue (north of Speedway)
Tucson, Arizona
http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/aahs/lectures.shtml
Tuesday 19 January 1:15 PM
British Museum Gallery Talk
"Object and Image: Pre-Hispanic and Colonial Mexico”
Room 27
British Museum
London, England
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/january/object_and_image.aspx
Thursday, January 21, 6:30 PM
"The Spanish Conquest and its Aftermath"
David Brading, University of Cambridge, discusses the turbulent events of the conquest which quickly established a new colonial order.
BP Lecture Theatre
£5, concessions £3
British Museum
London, England
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar/january/the_spanish_conquest.asp
January 21, 2010, 7:00 PM
"Using Prehistoric Archaeology to Study Modern Biodiversity"
David Steadman
Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center
800 Weedon Dr NE
St Petersburg, Florida
http://www.cgcas.org/index.html
January 31, 3:00 PM
Chicago Archaeology Society Lecture
"Chinampas of Xalcotan, Mexico"
Dr. Christopher Morehart
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave
First Floor Meeting Room
Evanston, IL
http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Archaeological-Society/calendar/10215137/
February 3, 2010
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology
Great Discoveries Lecture Series
“Machu Picchu and the Incas”
Dr. Clark L. Erickson
After its “discovery” in 1911 by Hiram Bingham and subsequent research, competing hypotheses have been proposed about the site’s purpose and meaning. Dr. Erickson will evaluate these interpretations.
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
http://www.penn.museum/college-and-adults/324-great-discoveries-lecture-series.html
February 5, 7:30 PM
Maya Society of Minnesota Lecture
"Shifting Alliances and Classic Period Politics: The Archaeology of the Mirador Group at El Perú-Waka’, Petén, Guatemala"
The Mirador Group is one of El Perú-Waka’s principal architectural groups, comprised of a small temple and two of the site’s grandest pyramids. Excavations conducted from 2003-2006 demonstrate a lengthy tradition of ritual activity associated with these buildings, extending from the Late Preclassic through the Terminal Classic period. Moreover, one of the pyramids served a long-term mortuary function for high-status elites, housing the remains of an unknown ruler and three elite women. Archaeological discoveries at the Mirador Group will be highlighted in this presentation, and also examined relative to specific historical events documented in the Mayan epigraphic record. This comparative approach allows us to explore how El Perú may have been integrated into the larger Mesoamerican world system – namely with the central Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan and the dominant Maya capitals of Tikal and Calakmul.
Michelle Rich
Drew Science 118 (south of Old Main),
Hamline University
St. Paul, Minnesota
www.hamline.edu/mayasociety/MSM_LIST_lectures_and_worksh_Fall_2009.htm
February 6, 9:00 AM
Maya Society of Minnesota Workshop
"What Can We Learn from Ancient Maya Tombs?: A Case Study of Royal Burials from El Perú-Waka’?"
The excavation of ancient tombs has always captured the imagination of intrepid explorers, professional archaeologists and an interested public alike. In the Maya area, two factors have dovetailed to create an ongoing focus on burial contexts in archaeological fieldwork. First, Classic-period Maya interments are common in both ritual and residential structures, making it virtually impossible to excavate a building without encountering a burial; and second, the Maya have a rich artistic tradition, and as a result, many burials – particularly of the ancient elite – contain elaborate funerary objects. A tomb, however, is a complex interweaving of multiple categories of information: from the typically-showcased artifacts, to human and animal skeletal material, to fine-grained data such as pigments and minerals that tend to be understudied or overlooked relative to other tomb contents. Consequently, multiple scales of mortuary data are vital when coming to conclusions about burial practices among the ancient Maya. In this informal seminar we will focus on several royal and noble tombs from El Perú-Waka’ to explore what the full range of components of a mortuary assemblage can tell us about the interred individual(s), as well as the people who conducted associated burial rituals, and how ancient re-entry activities may affect archaeological interpretations.
Michelle Rich
Giddens Learning Center 6s (the Anthropology Lab),
Hamline University(southeast corner of Hewitt and Snelling),
St.Paul, Minnesota
www.hamline.edu/mayasociety/MSM_LIST_lectures_and_worksh_Fall_2009.ht
February 15, 2010, 7:30 PM
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society Lecture
“New Clues, New Research, and New Photos of the Oldest Art in Western North America:
Current Thoughts on the Western Archaic Tradition”
Henry Wallace
Duval Auditorium,
University Medical Center,
1501 North Campbell Avenue (north of Speedway)
Tucson, Arizona
http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/aahs/lectures.shtml
February 18, 2010, 7:00 PM
"Bahamian and Florida Cultural Interactions in Prehistory through the Early 19th-Century"
Bob Carr
Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center.
800 Weedon Dr NE
St Petersburg, Florida
http://www.cgcas.org/index.html
February 20-21, 2010.
Announcing the 2010 Midwest Conference on Andean and Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory, which will be hosted by Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne
Details and conference registration and abstract submission can be found at the following web site:
http://www.ipfw.edu/anthropology/MWCAAAE/Welcome.html
February 26th-February 28th, 2010
Seventh Annual Tulane Maya Symposium & Workshop
"Great River Cities of the Ancient Maya"
The ancient lowland Maya civilization of Mexico and Central America is
often celebrated for its achievements in an environment unique for its
lack of rivers, unlike that of the ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Indus,
and Chinese civilizations. Nevertheless many major lowland Maya cities
were indeed located along important rivers such as the Usumacinta,
Pasión, Belize, Motagua, among others. These "River Cities" provided
the rest of the Maya lowlands access to the resource-rich highlands to
the south, as well as contact with to both the Caribbean and Gulf
coasts. Moreover, they facilitated the movement of peoples throughout
the region, allowed for critical movement and trading of exotic goods,
and gave rise to innovative artistic and architectural styles. For
these reasons, this conference will focus on how and why the great
river cities of the ancient lowland Maya represent some of the most
intriguing, opulent, and important segments of this civilization.
Speakers at this year’s conference include: David Freidel, M. Kathryn
Brown
Takeshi Inomata, Robert J. Sharer, Arthur A. Demarest, Charles Golden,
Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo, Jason Yaeger, Nicholas Dunning, Marc Zender,
Gabrielle Vail, Christine Hernandez, and Marcus Eberl.
The Middle American Research Institute [MARI] is organizing this
year’s Seventh Annual Maya Symposium & Workshop with the collaboration
of the Stone Center for Latin American Studies.
Tulane University and the New Orleans Museum of Art
New Orleans, Louisiana
http://stonecenter.tulane.edu/articles/detail/332/Seventh-Annual-Tulane-Maya-Symposium-Workshop
March 9, 2010, 7:30 PM
"Early Human Populations in the New World: A Biased Perspective."
Professor James M. Adovasio, Mercyhurst College.
Missouri History Museum,
5700 Lindell Blvd at DeBaliveiere, Forest Park
St. Louis, Missouri
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/aia/
March 10–11, 2010
School for Advanced Research Seminar
“New Archaeological Research at Pueblo Bonito: Reopening National Geographic Society Excavations”
660 Garcia Street
Santa Fe, NM 87505
http://sarweb.org/index.php?2010_seminars
Saturday, March 13, 10:30 a.m.
Sunwatch Lecture
"Recent Excavation and Geophysical Discoveries at the Moorehead Circle, Fort Ancient"
Robert Riordan, Wright State University
Sunwatch Archaeology Park
2301 W. River Road
Dayton, Ohio
March 13, 2010, 1:30 PM
Pre-Columbian Society at the University Museum Lecture
“Xultun: A Cyclical Pattern of Stelae Erection Over 250 Years.”
Dr. Wendy J. Bacon
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology
3260 South Street,
Philadelphia, PA
http://www.precolumbian.org/othermeetings.HTM
March 15, 2010, 7:30 PM
“Chimney Rock and Chaco Canyon, Pinnacle and Mesa Verde:
Ancestral Pueblo Regional Dynamics”
Steve Lekson
Duval Auditorium,
University Medical Center,
1501 North Campbell Avenue (north of Speedway)
Tucson, Arizona
http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/aahs/lectures.shtml
March 16-19, 2010
2010 University of Texas Maya Meetings
"Early Maya Iconography and Script"
We are very pleased and excited to announce that the 2010 Maya Meetings will take place in Antigua, Guatemala, at UT-Austin’s new academic and conference center for Mesoamerican studies, the Casa Herrera. Since 1977 international students and scholars have gathered in Austin each year to learn and discuss the latest findings in Maya research. We are now able to take the Maya Meetings to the land of the Maya, to expand this spirit of learning and exchange. We hope to make Antigua a routine location for future conferences, alternating each year with our traditional venue on the UT-Austin campus.
As always, the 2010 Maya Meetings will offer a combination of learning workshops and academic lectures. Three workshops focusing on hieroglyphs and iconography will run for four days from March 16 through 19, accompanied by two courtyard lectures during each evening.
The Casa Herrera,
Antigua, Guatemala
http://www.utmaya.org/index.html
March 18, 2010, 7:00 PM
"Shell Mounds in the Southeastern U.S.: Middens, Monuments,Temple Mounds, Rings, or Works?"
Bill Marquardt
Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center
800 Weedon Dr NE
St Petersburg, Florida
http://www.cgcas.org/index.html
Thursday, March 25, 2010, 6:30 PM
AIA Lecture
"How Did the Maya Feed the Multitudes?"
Payson Sheets, University of Colorado (Borowski Lecture)Beginning in the 1840s, and extending for over a century, scholars believed that the ancient Maya lived in dispersed households, with low regional population densities. Thus they could easily have fed themselves with shifting (swidden) agriculture focusing on maize, beans, and squash. The prominence of maize in art and in creation beliefs (e.g. Popol Vuh) reinforced this view. However, settlement surveys during the past six decades have found exceptionally dense housemounds, interpreted as very dense populations, in the hundreds of people per square kilometer. Archaeologists have discovered some large-scale agricultural features that must have increased productivity, such as terraces and wetland reclamation raised fields. Microscopic remains of cultigens have been found, but what has eluded scholars are the details of cultivation. We wish to know what was cultivated, where, how, and with what productivity per unit area. The exceptional preservation of the ancient Ceren village and its environs provides us an unusually clear window into past agriculture. That is because the eruption of Loma Caldera volcano, at about AD 600, buried the landscape under many meters of volcanic ash. We recently discovered intensive agricultural fields some 150 meters south of the village where manioc, a root crop, was grown. Land use lines radiated from the village that divided individual farmer’s plots. Manioc was not just an occasional kitchen garden plant, but it was a staple at Ceren, and perhaps at other Maya settlements. The tubers are high in carbohydrates, and the leaves are high in protein. Manioc may have helped feed the Maya multitudes.
Denny Hall
Room 317,
Dickinson College,
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
http://www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10124&society_code=all
March 28, 3:00 PM
Chicago Archaeology Society Lecture
"The Collier Lodge Site; a 9000 year record of life along Illinois Kankakee River"
Dr. Mark Schurr
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave
First Floor Meeting Room
Evanston, IL
http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Archaeological-Society/calendar/10215137/
April 9, 7:30 PM
Maya Society of Minnesota Lecture
"Embodying Slippage: An Exploration of Captive Portraits and Spectatorship in Classic Maya Art"
This study examines the notion of personal identity at its intersection with captivity in the sculptural programs of the ancient Maya. Using the rich corpus of Classic-period sculptures from Palenque, and other Usumacínta-region sites, I consider representations of captives in relation to viewers. For this research I employ methodologies modeled by Michael Taussig, a scholar who offers useful approaches for understanding structural operations surrounding likeness, presence, and the potency of images (Taussig 1992). Through applying Tuassig's lenses to Maya art, I re-examine representations of captives and problematize notions of personal identity in ancient Maya art. At Usumacínta-region Maya sites, such as Palenque, Tonina, Piedras Negras, and Yaxchilan, artists portrayed captives stripped of their high-status regalia. Some exhibit bound hands; others writhe, twist, and struggle as they endure excruciatingly uncomfortable body positions. After analyzing portraits of these unenviable subjects, it becomes apparent that a number of visual and compositional strategies facilitated a mimetic response that both encouraged and destroyed alterity among ancient spectators. Some devices that catalyze such slippage include the representation of idiosyncratic facial features, the depiction of specific postures and hand gestures, the spatial locations in which portraits appeared, and the presence of hieroglyphic inscriptions that describe biographies and circumstances surrounding the captive's capture. Furthermore, some hieroglyphic texts accompanying such pictorial programs participate in collapsing the categories of captives, captors, and viewers. In short, the clean difference between the viewer's identity and the captive's identity becomes much more complex than generally described.Through this research I suggest that the act of viewing captive portraits must be considered as a liminal experience, charged with the potential to affect the viewer. Possessing this capacity, the portraits of captives became powerful, and probably terrifying, communicative vehicles. On one hand, the captives were always drastically different, or, overtly "other," yet because those differences were realized through the recognition of hints of sameness, the "other" was never that far away. Engaging in this viewing relationship would have reminded ancient inhabitants of the thin line separating the status of captive and noncaptive. Whether the viewer was a ruler, prince, elite lord, or foreign ambassador, portraits likely reminded observers of the precarious positions they held. The tension inherent in captive portraits, therefore, allowed them to become compelling participants in the visual programs of Classic-period Maya cities.
Kaylee Spencer
Drew Science 118 (south of Old Main),
Hamline University
St. Paul, Minnesota
www.hamline.edu/mayasociety/MSM_LIST_lectures_and_worksh_Fall_2009.
April 9-11, 2010
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology Annual Maya Weekend
“Maya Women ~ Figures of Enduring Strength and Power”
For the past quarter century, international scholars, Maya enthusiasts, artists, linguists, archaeologists and other have joined together for a lively weekend of engaging talks and programs centering around the Maya world. During the weekend, numerous other lectures and language workshops provide opportunities for attendees to learn about Maya culture and current archaeological work at Maya sites. Participants can expect a rich intellectual experience—and activity choices—as the weekend provides diverse opportunities for engagement.
Our 2010 Weekend theme, Maya Women ~ Figures of Enduring Strength and Power,focuses on the central role that women have always played in the social history of Maya peoples. Whether sustaining Classic era dynasties or advocating for justice in contemporary Latin America, Maya women are commanding figures. In many households, they anchor daily life and religious practice for their families and communities. Over centuries they have been pivotal figures resisting cultural annihilation, and today many have become successful political leaders and entrepreneurs.
As always, the weekend combines illustrated talks by more than a dozen world renowned scholars with engaging films, interactive hieroglyphic workshops for beginners and more advanced glyph readers-and an optional Maya banquet. $175; $140 members. Dinners, lunches extra.
Contact
Events Office
(215) 898-4890
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
http://www.penn.museum/college-and-adults/201-maya-weekend.htm
April 15, 2010, 7:00 PM
"Life and Death in Southeastern Florida during the Late Archaic"
Alison Elgart
Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center
800 Weedon Dr NE
St Petersburg, Florida
http://www.cgcas.org/index.html
Monday, April 19, 2010, 7:30 PM
AIA Lecture
"American Connections – Documenting Contact Between Polynesia and the Americas in Prehistory"
Alice Ann Storey, University of Auckland (Stone Lecture)
Contact with the indigenous people of the Americas occurred by foreigners who landed on both coasts before the arrival of Columbus. Evidence for Polynesian contacts on the west coast of the Americas has been mounting in the past few years. In this talk I will discuss the evidence from prehistoric sweet potatoes, bottle gourds, fishhooks, canoes and chickens for contact. It will be shown that there were opportunities for meetings, trade and exchange and diffusion of technology and language without a large scale impact on either culture. Explanations involving long distance contacts from Asia or lost continents are not necessary to explain these meetings as the Polynesians have a well documented history of sailing, exploring and eastward expansion.
Courtyard by Marriott,
Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10124&society_code=all
April 25, 3:00 PM
Chicago Archaeology Society Lecture
"These walls can talk; lessons from ancient Southwestern USA pueblo architecture"
Dr. Jonathan Reyman
Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Ave
First Floor Meeting Room
Evanston, IL
http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Archaeological-Society/calendar/10215137/
Sunday, April 25, 2010, 3:00 PM
AIA Lecture
"Rising from the Waters: The Origins of the Hopewell Phenomenon in the Aftermath of Global Climate Change"
Douglas K. Charles, Wesleyan University (English Lecture)
The Hopewell Phenomenon of 2000 years ago is characterized by the relatively sudden appearance across American Midwest of particular forms of elaborate earthwork construction, highly ritualized mortuary practices, exotic raw materials exchange, and complex decorative styles. Concommitantly, there is an increase in the cultivation of starchy seeded plants and in the utlization of ceramic vessels in which to boil the seeds. This period is also marked by the concentration of previously dispersed populations into the valleys of the Mississippi River and its major tributaries. Archaeologists are coming to grips with the interrelation of these factors, and how they come to constitute Hopewell, but what has not been clear is the reason for the specific timing of the phenomenon. Recent geologic and climatic evidence suggests that the Mississippi River drainage system underwent a major period of increased rainfall and flooding associated with a worldwide climate episode ca. 1000-600 BC. Several more centuries elapsed before the floodplains of Mississippi and its tributaries stabilized and took their present form. Hopewell emerges at the end of this process of landscape transformation as a period of intense social and political interaction as communities colonized these newly established riverine ecozones.
Spiro Hall, Room 2,
Wagner College,
631 Howard Avenue
Staten Island, New York
http://www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10124&society_code=all
April 29-May 1, 2010
“The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire” Symposium
J. Paul Getty Museum
Los Angeles, California
(No URL Yet)
October 16-19, 2010
University of Texas Maya Meetings
2010 Maya Meetings
“Early Maya Iconography and Script”
We are very pleased and excited to announce that the 2010 Maya Meetings will take place in Antigua, Guatemala, at UT-Austin’s new academic and conference center for Mesoamerican studies, the Casa Herrera. Since 1977 international students and scholars have gathered in Austin each year to learn and discuss the latest findings in Maya research. We are now able to take the Maya Meetings to the land of the Maya, to expand this spirit of learning and exchange. We hope to make Antigua a routine location for future conferences, alternating each year with our traditional venue on the UT-Austin campus.
As always, the 2010 Maya Meetings will offer a combination of learning workshops and academic lectures. Three workshops focusing on hieroglyphs and iconography will run for four days from March 16 through 19, accompanied by two courtyard lectures during each evening. All events will take place at the Casa Herrera, a beautifully restored 17th-century mansion located near the center of Antigua, Guatemala’s colonial capital.
Our topic in 2010 will focus on new developments in the study of early Maya iconography and writing, focusing on the sites of Kaminaljuyu, Takalik Abaj, Izapa, San Bartolo and others. More details about the presenters, the schedule and details of registration will be posted early this coming fall.
Please check back with us!
Early December 2010
15th European Maya Conference 2010
Madrid, Spain
"Maya Society and Maya Social Organisation"
The EMC 2010 will be held in Madrid in cooperation with the Universidad Complutense and the Museo de Americas.
Organiser: Dr. Alfonso Lacadena García-Gallo
http://www.wayeb.org/conferencesevents/emc_upcoming.php
MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS
Ongoing
San Diego Museum of Man
"Gods & Gold"
Uncover centuries of Latin America's mysterious ancient past in Gods & Gold: Ancient Treasures From Mexico to Peru. The exhibition features the Museum's stunning collections of Mexican, Central American, and South American archaeological objects. See rare gold and jewelry, exotic figurines, intricate stonework, and exquisite pottery from the ancient world. Explore distinctions in artistic styles, techniques, and materials used to create the numerous intriguing pieces created by such cultures as the Maya, Aztec, Inca, and many others.
San Diego Museum of Man
1350 El Prado,
Balboa Park
San Diego, CA
http://www.museumofman.org/index.html
Through June 11, 2011
Milwaukee Public Museum
“It's All in the Details: The Legacy of the Fifield Collection”
Objects in the Fifield collection were created prior to Columbus' arrival in the New World, and are thus considered "pre-Columbian." Great cultures such as the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec were just a few societies in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and the diversity, social institutions, and technology of these peoples are apparent in the material evidence archaeologists and collectors are still uncovering today. Such artifacts can provide many clues about ancient society: paint on vase can teach us about early chemistry, and a stone yoke can hint at what Mayans wore while playing their famous, ruthless ball game.
Milwaukee Public Museum
800 West Wells Street,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
http://www.mpm.edu/exhibitions/featured/fifield/
June 4, 2008–December 31, 2009
Peabody Museum of Archaeology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
"Fragile Memories: Images of Archaeology and Community at Copán, 1891–1900"
In the late nineteenth century, Peabody Museum expedition teams set out to remote areas of Mexico and Central America, often with little inkling of what they might experience and barely prepared to navigate the cultural encounters essential to their missions. The Peabody Museum holds the written and visual records of these early expeditions and recently completed a two-year project to digitize over 10,000 nineteenth-century glass-plate negatives. The earliest images in this amazing and unique collection were photographed at Copán, during the museum's pioneering archaeological expeditions to the site. These images offer a wealth of archaeological information for current research along with a visual narrative of the budding town and the archaeologists ' interactions with the local community. As the excavations unfold before our eyes, scenes of the Copán community also emerge. But, who are the people in these images, and what effect did the excavations have on their community?
Peabody Museum of Archaeology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
11 Divinity Ave.
http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/galleries/Fragile%20Memories.htm
July 22-Ongoing
"Aztec to Zapotec: Selections From the Ancient Americas Collection"
Orlando Museum of Art
Orlando, Florida
http://www.omart.org/galleries/exhibitions/aztec/aztec.html
December 2007–February 2010
"SET IN STONE: 2000 Years of Gem and Mineral Trade in the Southwest"
Explore how the quest for turquoise, shell, copper - and eventually silver and gold - shaped the character of the Southwest. Walk back in time along displays of Native American jewelry from the creations of contemporary Indian jewelers to ornaments crafted deep in prehistory. Discover how turquoise, Arizona's state gem, has brought trade and influence to the Southwest for centuries and see how modern techniques unlock the stories hidden in these stones. As you delve deeper into the state's gem and mineral trade, you will learn why the Arizona State Seal prominently depicts a miner with his shovel, how Arizona was named after a massive silver strike and why, and how it all began more than 2000 years ago.
1013 E. University Boulevard
Arizona State Museum
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/exhibits/index.shtml
March 13, 2008–December 31, 2009
"Storied Walls: Murals of the Americas"
Throughout time and around the world, people have adorned the walls of their homes, palaces, tombs, temples, and government buildings with painted scenes and designs. From cave paintings to the Neolithic shrines of Çatalhüyük, Turkey, to the Sistine Chapel, to the contemporary works of Diego Rivera or graffiti art, artists have transformed blank architectural canvases into engaging, evocative works of art, through the application of color, pattern, and figure, While murals may serve as simple decoration, they are often highly symbolic, making visible a people's religious, political, and cultural beliefs, their histories and values.
Storied Walls: Murals of the Americas explores the spectacular wall paintings from the Hopi village kivas of Awatovi in Arizona; San Bartolo and Bonampak in Guatemala and Mexico respectively, and the Moche huacas of northern Peru. The artists and artisans who adorned these walls left stunning visual accounts of some of the most significant and enduring stories of their times—stories that insist upon being read, even now, centuries after their creation. The original art works remain for the most part in situ . Storied Walls uses the photographs and drawings of archaeologists, models, and fragments of original murals, to examine the meanings and social uses of murals within the Pueblo, Maya, and Moche cultures; the history of their discoveries and investigations by affiliates of the Peabody Museum and others; and on-going efforts to preserve and restore these fragile painted surfaces.
Peabody Museum
11 Divinity Avenue,
Cambridge, MA,
http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/galleries/Storied%20Walls.htm
September 18, 2008-December 31 2010
"A Stolen World"
Museum of World Culture
Göteburg , Sweden
A Stolen World denounces the plundering of art resources that many countries have suffered. The market for stolen works of art is among the world's largest illegal trades. One notorious example presented in the exhibition is a group of textiles unearthed by tomb robbers on Peru's Paracas Peninsula. Fine multicolored textiles, with representations of human figures, animals, and flora, they were used as funerary garments for the deceased. The textiles are highly sought after, especially since they are often in an excellent state of preservation. On view through 2010.
http://www.varldskulturmuseet.se
October 3, 2009-January 10, 2010
“Gifts from the Ancestors: Ancient Ivories of Bering Strait”
Gifts from the Ancestors brings together ancient ivories masterfully carved by peoples from the coasts of Chukotka, western Alaska, and the islands in between. Approximately 200 objects will be included from over twenty institutions and private collections, including rare examples from recent Russian excavations at Ekven, Chukotka, which are exhibited for the first time in North America. Finely crafted hunting implements, tools, ornaments, and figures in human and animal form, mark the extraordinary florescence in art and culture during the first millennium A.D. in this northern “crossroads of continents.” The exhibition, catalogue, and Web site explore the historical, cultural, and archaeological significance of the ivories as well as issues related to their appreciation today by indigenous communities, museums, archaeologists, artists, and participants in the art market.
Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton, New Jersey
http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/events/Extended_Pages/GFA/
April 5-December 31, 2009
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Exhibit
"Painted Metaphors: Pottery and Politics of the Ancient Maya"
Around 700 C.E. Chamá and the other towns and villages along Guatemala's Chixoy River were hubs of activity, crossroads of trade and pilgrimage, channeling the movement of people and ideas at the height of Maya civilization. This is the story of the ancient Maya as lived by these villagers and the rediscovery of their history by archaeologists today.
Penn Museum's unique collection of brilliantly painted Chamá Polychromes opens a window into the lives of the ordinary Maya of 1300 years ago, and the way they dealt with the challenge of forced change. More than 150 objects -- figurines, jades, musical instruments, ritual objects, weaving implements, cooking pots and projectile points--convey vibrant evidence of ancient Maya life, as revealed by archaeological discovery and scientific analysis.
3260 South Street
33rd and Spruce Streets in West Philadelphia.
Spruce Street becomes South Street just east of the Museum.
Since the South Street Bridge is closed for construction, the I-76
exits for South Street cannot be used.
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/exhibits_upcoming.shtml
May 31-October 4, 2009
El Paso Museum of Archaeology
"Rebuilding a Maya Monument"
4301 Transmountain Road
El Paso, Texas
We are located at the base of the Franklin Mountains, on Transmountain Road just west of U.S. Highway 54.
http://www.elpasotexas.gov/arch_museum/events.asp
September 1-December 18, 2009
"Art of Sky, Art of Earth: Maya Cosmic Imagery"
Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology
Focuses on St. Bonaventure University’s collection of ancient Maya pottery. A wide array of Maya images, symbols, and hieroglyphs that represent different aspects of beliefs about the universe are on display. This imagery serves as a point of departure for to discuss ancient and contemporary Maya culture. This exhibit features bilingual text.
Wake Forest University,
Wingate Road
Winston-Salem, NC
Through January 11, 2010,
“Gold of the Americas”
The Musée d’Histoire Naturelle is presenting an exhibition devoted to the yellow metal that is found in particularly high concentrations on the American continent. From the gold of the gods to gold fever, the exhibition takes a long look at this prized metal and the political and social contexts that surround it. In addition to its sociological, scientific, and geological aspects, the exhibition also emphasizes the artistic aspect of gold production, and features a group of superb works from well-known international collections, including those of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montreal and the Museo del Oro in Bogota.
Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
Galerie de Minéralogie
36 rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Paris, France
June 26, 2009-January 31, 2010
“War and Tribute; the Mexican Presence in Guerrero."
The Mexica presence in Geurrero lasted 72 years.
Maize, beans, chia, huauhtli (amaranth), cocoa, honey, cotton
blankets, Nagua, huipiles, jícaras, copal, sea shells, bells and
hatchets of copper, cotton, sartales of green stone, reproductions of
weapons and buckler, and replicas of tablets of gold were taken as
tribute from towns in Guerrero. The 130 pieces of the exhibition show
war and tribute items.
Museo del Templo Mayor
Mexico City
Mexico
(No URL yet)
October 6, 2009-January 24, 2010
Musee Quai Branly
Paris, France
"Teotihuacan; City of the Gods"
http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/programmation/exhibitions/soon/teotihuacan/index.htmllivepage.apple.com
September 24, 2009-January 24, 2010
"Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler”
This major exhibition explores Aztec civilisation through the divine, military and political role of the last elected ruler, Moctezuma II (reigned AD 1502–1520).
From his capital in Tenochtitlan (the site of modern Mexico City), Moctezuma’s empire comprised much of modern highland Mexico, stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific Ocean. His power was reflected in the splendour of his capital’s architecture, his command of the prestigious Jaguar and Eagle military orders, and his sacrificial rituals to the gods. Moctezuma’s world was unrivalled, and this remained so until the devastating arrival of strangers – Cortés and his Spanish fleet.
The legacy of this tumultuous event and the semi-mythical status of Moctezuma will be reassessed through the display of imposing stone sculptures and rare gold and turquoise objects, many of which will be seen for the first time in the UK.
Rediscover the world of the Aztecs and trace the foundation of modern Mexico in the British Museum’s next major exhibition on great rulers.
The British Museum
London, England
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/future_exhibitions/moctezuma.aspx
March 25-July 5, 2010
"The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire,"
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
An exhibition showcasing masterworks of Aztec sculpture—among them recent archaeological discoveries—which will be juxtaposed with 16th- to 18th-century illustrations that reflect European interpretations of Aztec culture.
The exhibition traces European efforts to understand the New World by viewing it through the lens of its own classical past. Following Hernán Cortés's conquest of the great city of Tenochtitlan in 1520, Europeans confronted a culture that was profoundly unfamiliar. When the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún compiled a history of Aztec culture up to the conquest, known as the Florentine Codex, he created a parallel pantheon, identifying the principal Aztec deities with their Roman counterparts: Huitzilopochtli is named “otro
Hercules” (another Hercules) while Tezcatlipoca was likened to Jupiter, and so on. In this way, Sahagún and his local informants drew upon Graeco-Roman paradigms to assist Europeans in understanding Aztec religious beliefs.
These early encounters with the civilizations of the Americas coincided with Renaissance Europe’s rediscovery of its own classical past. Europeans were fascinated with the Aztecs and other cultures of the New World. Artifacts from the Americas made their way back to European private collections, where they also inspired festivals and
pageants, including performances of classical theater staged in New World settings. In the 18th century, scholars of comparative religion such as Bernard Picart compared Quetzalcoatl and Mercury, rejecting the demonization of what were previously seen as pagan deities.
Drawing primarily on the collections of the Museo Nacional de Antropología and the Museo del Templo Mayor in Mexico City, the exhibition will also feature the Sahagún’s Florentine Codex from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, and 16th to 18th-century works relating to Mexico from the Getty Research Institute’s Special Collections.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a two-day conference will be convened at the Getty Villa from April 29-May 1, 2010. International scholars will address historical analogies drawn between the Aztecs and ancient Rome, the production of Sahagún's Florentine Codex, and the implications of comparative approaches to the archaeology of
empires.
Getty Museum URL;
http://www.getty.edu/visit/exhibitions/future.html
PERMANENT EXHIBITIONS
"The Ancient Americas"
The Field Museum's innovative new exhibition, is an exploration of the challenges that human beings everywhere have faced for millennia. It tells the epic story of human life on the American continents, from the arrival of small
groups of hunter- gatherers, whose way of life survived into the 20th century, to the great but fragile empires of the Aztecs and the Incas - empires that stretched thousands of miles, encompassed as many as 10 million people, and came to sudden, brutal ends. Seven listening posts inside the exhibition offer gallery overviews in Spanish. All exhibition videos are subtitled in Spanish, and a Spanish language gallery guide is also available.
These stories of The Ancient Americas are told through captivating displays and activities, with something for visitors of all ages and all levels of interest. Visitors will step into the world of Ice-Age mammoth hunters - Chicago circa 11,000 B.C. They'll walk through a recreation of an 800-year-old pueblo dwelling, survey the monumental earthworks of mound- building peoples, and explore the great cities of Tenochtitlan and Cuzco, capitals of the Aztec and Inca empires. They'll make new discoveries at interactive maps, dioramas, and computer activities, and watch animated videos created specially for this exhibition. They'll follow the Museum's own archaeologists at work in the field, and have opportunities to begin more intensive investigations of their own.
And the artifacts! The Ancient Americas is built on the Field Museum's unsurpassed archaeological collections. Thousands of objects from these collections bring depth and beauty to the stories of the people who made them, and allow visitors to see for themselves the evidence on which our knowledge of the ancient Americans is based. On display are more than 200 ceramic vessels from the Museum's world-famous Peruvian collections; hundreds of luxury and spiritual items from our comprehensive Hopewell collection; 200 of the scarce gold objects left after conquistadors raided
Colombia of its treasures, and much more.
The Field Museum
Chicago, Illinois
"Latin American Art: Ancient to Contemporary"
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The heart of the collection of the art of the ancient Americas is a rich cross section of objects from the major civilizations of ancient Mexico. A significant portion of the collection, which was assembled by Proctor Stafford and acquired by the museum in 1986, represents the ceramic funerary offerings found in the tombs of the West Mexican states of Nayarit, Colima, and Jalisco. These ceramic sculptures appear to reflect the objects and activities of daily life and were made popular by such collectors as the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.
http://www.lacma.org/art/CollectionsOverview.aspx
“Visible Vault: Archaeological Treasures From Ancient Latin America”
Los Angeles Museum of Natural History
When the Spanish arrived in the New World during the late 15th century, vibrant Native American civilizations were flourishing throughout North, Central, and South America. Huge empires — the Aztec based in the Valley of Mexico and the Inca from the highlands of Peru — had transformed ancient America and the Andean region into economically powerful nations ruled by massive and efficient governments. We invite you to visit our Visible Vault exhibit to view a selection of unique objects displayed from among a collection of hundreds of other treasures produced by the ancient peoples of the Americas.
To give visitors a better sense of the Museum behind the scenes we’ve displayed the exhibit’s objects in a non-traditional way. For example, artifacts are protected for safekeeping as they would be in our actual storeroom. The exhibit hall also features dim, dramatic lighting so that the artifacts, which are largely ceremonial in nature, can be viewed today as they might have been in the past — within the confines of temples for instance.
http://www.nhm.org/site/explore-exhibits/permanent-exhibits/latin-american-art
"Living Traditions: Arts of the Americas"
The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
This transformation of the art of the Americas galleries features work from diverse Native American peoples and times, new commissions of Northwest Coast art, and important collections of California, Southwest, and Mesoamerican art.
Stanford campus,
off Palm Drive at Museum Way.
Stanford, CA
"Range Creek: An Anthropology of Place." University of Utah Natural History Museum
1390 E. Presidents Circle
(top of 200 South).
Salt Lake City, Utah
http://www.umnh.utah.edu/museum/Exhibits/permanentExhibits.html
"Earthen Images: Ceramics from Ancient America"
Norton Museum of Art,
1451 S. Olive Ave.,
West Palm Beach, Florida
"First Arrivals; Artifacts from the Miami Circle,"
Historical Museum of Southern Florida, Miami, ongoing.
http://www.historical-museum.org/archaeology/first_arrivals/first_arriva
"Art of the Ancient Americas,"
(through 2012)
The Walters Museum,
Baltimore, Maryland
http://www.thewalters.org/html/exhibit_current_detail_simp.asp?ID=99
"Pre-Columbian Marine Animal Forms" Mingei Museum,
San Diego
Ongoing exhibit of 250 pieces
http://www.mingei.org/mushis.html
"Beauty Revealed; Panama's Dynamic Art and Realms of Blood and Jade; Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica"
Hudson Museum,
University of Maine,
Orono, Maine,
http://www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum/exhibits.htm
"Maya: Heart of Sky, Heart or Earth"
San Diego Museum of Man
San Diego, CA
http://www.museumofman.org/html/exhibitions.html
"Art of the Ancient Americas"
Permanent Collection
Lowe Art Museum,
University of Miami
Miami, Florida
http://www.lowemuseum.org/ancient_americas.html
"Archaeology and the Native Peoples of Tennessee"
McClung Museum
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tenn.
http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/newpermanent/archaeology/index.html
"Art of the Ancient Americas"
Michael C. Carlos Museum
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
http://carlos.emory.edu/COLLECTION/AMERICAS/
"Hohokam; The Land and the People"
Pueblo Grande Museum
Phoenix, Arizona
http://www.ci.phoenix.az.us/PUEBLO/exmain.html
"Ancient Art of the Americas"
Museo de las Americas
Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.museo.org/exhibitions.html
"Ancient Americas: Treasures from the Hispanic Heritage Collections"
Gilcrease Museum
Tulsa, Oklahoma
http://www.gilcrease.org/ExhibitionInfo/exhibitinfo.htm
"Art of Ancient America; 1500 BC to 1500 AD"
Museum of New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.museumofnewmexico.org/exhibits.cgi?_fn=Show+Exhibit&_recordnum=123
"Gods, Kings and Artisans of Ancient Mesoamerica"
Marjorie Barrick Museum
Painted Vessels of the Maya Elite, Ceramics of Ancient West Mexico and Figurines span over two thousand years. Civilizations flourished across Mexico and Central America prior to the arrival of Europeans in the New World. Several distinct archaeological cultures developed, a few of which are represented in the collection here.
The majority of the artifacts in this exhibition came from burials and offerings. These objects were meant to be taken into the afterlife or given as offerings. Many of the objects are, therefore, not simply symbols of the complex philosophy that combined god, human and the natural world into one, but are the very currency of that relationship. These were the possessions of religious figures, warrior priests and divine kings. They were meant to be carried between the natural and supernatural worlds, helping to bridge the gap between the living and the dead
4505 S Maryland Pkwy
Marjorie Barrick Museum
Las Vegas, NV
http://hrc.nevada.edu/museum/Exhibits/permanent.html
"The Glassell Collection of Pre-Columbian Gold"
Houston Museum of Fine Arts
The Glassell Collection of Pre-Colombian Gold, gift of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. The peoples of ancient America valued gold for its spiritual power rather than for its worth. Gold was believed to be the flesh of the gods and to possess the energy of the sun.
This rare collection of Pre-Columbian gold, donated by Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., Chairman Emeritus and Life Trustee of the MFAH, includes gold objects that were created as personal ornaments to adorn the face and body, as well as ritual objects, like drinking cups for ceremonies and masks for burials.
http://mfah.org/main.asp?target=collection&par1=15&par3=43
Museo POPOL VUH
"Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology"
The permanent exhibit includes representative objects from all the archaeological regions and time periods in Pre-Columbian Guatemala. The exhibition is organized in chronological sequence, from the earliest traces of human presence in the modern territory of Guatemala, until the Spanish conquest. Three major geographic regions may be distinguished in the study of the ancient peoples of Guatemala: The Pacific Coast, The Highlands, and The Lowlands.
Museo Popol Vuh,
Universidad Francisco Marroquín,
Guatemala
FIRST CALIFORNIANS
This new installation showcases the Bowers' extensive permanent collection of Native American art and artifacts in stone, shell, plant fiber (through spectacular basketry) and feathers. These primary resources help tell the story of the culture of Native Californians. Although groups from all regions of California are represented in the
The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art
2002 North Main Street
Santa Ana, CA
VISION OF THE SHAMAN, SONG OF THE PRIEST
Pre-Columbian Art from Mexico, Central and South America has been at the heart of the Bowers for many years. A series of galleries communicates the power and sophistication of the mysterious cultures that rose and fell in ancient America.
The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art
2002 North Main Street
Santa Ana, CA
"Windows to Our Collections: Ohio’s Ancient Past"
Ohio Historical Center, Columbus, Ohio
This exhibit invites the visitor to explore over 15,000 years of Ohio’s ancient Native American heritage. At the entry, a widescreen monitor introduces the exhibit with two informational programs. Some of the Society’s most significant archaeological artifacts, such as the Adena Pipe, the mica hand, and the Wray figurine, as well as many animal effigy pipes from Tremper Mound are centrally featured in tower cases. Fiber optic lighting enhances visitors’ almost 360- degree view of these, and other, unique and beautiful artifacts. Visitors can open multiple artifact drawers to see what the ancient people used on a daily basis, as well as for special purposes. Those interested in a more thorough examination of the objects can move to nearby computer stations, where they can locate information on specific items in the online catalog. Here they can also find additional information on Ohio’s ancient cultures by visiting the OHS Archaeology blog and touring the First Ohioans on-line exhibit.
http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/places/c09/index.shtml
"We Walk in Two Worlds"
Historic Arkansas Museum
Little Rock, Arkansas
tells the story of Arkansas’s first people, the Caddo, Osage and Quapaw Indian tribes from early times to today. The exhibit is told through objects and research. Approximately 158 objects, such as pottery, clothing and weapons, will be on exhibit. The exhibit has six thematic areas that are arranged chronologically. Along with objects and a historical timeline are passages of relevant research from archeologists, historians and ethnographers.
Throughout the exhibit, is the dominant presence of the Native American voice, from each of Arkansas’s three prominent tribes. During the two years of exhibit development, many tribalmembers were interviewed and it is this voice that informs, educates and guides visitors through the exhibit.Historic Arkansas Museum chief curator and deputy director Swannee Bennett said, “What makes this exhibit unique is that it is a story of the Arkansas Native American told in large part with an Indian voice.”
This new permanent exhibit enables the museum to tell the bigger story of Arkansas’s frontier history. “We Walk in Two Worlds is a milestone as the State of Arkansas officially partners with the Caddo, Osage and Quapaw Nations and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian to tell this story of struggle and endurance.” said museum director Bill Worthen.
http://www.arkansashistory.com/whatsnew/newsDetail.asp?id=153
If you have a conference, lecture or event you wish to add to this calendar, please forward the info to;
LINKS
Mike Ruggeri’s The Ancient Americas Breaking News
Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient Americas Lectures, Conferences and Museum Exhibits
Mike Ruggeri’s Maya Archaeology Breaking News
Mike Ruggeri’s Pre-Clovis and Clovis World
Mike Ruggeri’s Pre-Clovis and Clovis Breaking News
Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient Andean World
Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient Andean World Breaking News
Mike Ruggeri’s Olmec Art Portfolio
Mike Ruggeri’s Teotihuacan; City of the Gods
Mike Ruggeri's Teotihuacan Art Portfolio
Mike Ruggeri’s Mesoamerica after Teotihuacan
Mike Ruggeri’s Mesoamerican Gulf Coast Art Portfolio
Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient West Mexico from the Pre-Classic to the Tarascans
Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient West Mexico Art Portfolio
Mike Ruggeri’s Toltec and Aztec World
Mike Ruggeri’s Toltec and Aztec Art Portfolio
Mike Ruggeri’s Zapotec Art Portfolio
Mike Ruggeri’s Mississippians and Mound Builders including the Adena and Hopewell
Mike Ruggeri’s The Ancient Southwest
Mike Ruggeri’s Casas Grandes World
Mike Ruggeri’s Moundbuilders and Ancient Southwest Breaking News
Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient America and Mesoamerica News and Links
Erik Boot’s Mesoamerican Archaeological News from the Mexican and Central American Press
FAMSI: Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies
Pre-ColumbianSociety; University of Penn.
Pre Columbian Society of Washington DC
Kerr’s Pre-Columbian Portfolio
Erik Boot’s Maya News Updates from the Mexican and Central American Press
Center for the Study of the First Americans
Nancy White’s South American Archaeology
Andean and Amazonian Archaeology Discussion Group
Copyright 2009;
Mike Ruggeri
Feedback and Comments;