In The Copan Sculpture Museum, Barbara Fash tells the inside story of conceiving, designing, and building a local museum with global significance. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and culture of the ancient Maya and a model for working with local communities to preserve cultural heritage.
The Art of Urbanism explores how the royal courts of powerful Mesoamerican centers represented their kingdoms in architectural, iconographic, and cosmological terms. Through an investigation of the ecological contexts and environmental opportunities of urban centers, the contributors consider how ancient Mesoamerican cities defined themselves and reflected upon their physicalâe"and metaphysicalâe"place via their built environment. Themes in the volume include the ways in which a kingdomâe(tm)s public monuments were fashioned to reflect geographic space, patron gods, and mythology, and how the Olmec, Maya, Mexica, Zapotecs, and others sought to center their world through architectural monuments and public art. This collection of papers addresses how communities leveraged their environment and built upon their cultural and historical roots as well as the ways that the performance of calendrical rituals and other public events tied individuals and communities to both urban centers and hinterlands. Twenty-three scholars from archaeology, anthropology, art history, and religious studies contribute new data and new perspectives to the understanding of ancient Mesoamericansâe(tm) own view of their spectacular urban and ritual centers.
RES 65/66 includes Francesco Pellizzi, “Editorial: RES at 35”; Remo Bodei, “A constellation of words”; Mary Weismantel, “Encounters with dragons”; Z. S. Strother, “A terrifying mimesis”; Wyatt MacGaffey, “Franchising minkisi in Loango”; Karen Overbey, “Seeing through stone”; Noam Andrews, “The space of knowledge”; and other papers.
This guidebook by Maria Fiallos is the best coverage of Honduras available. All the dive sites, all the restaurants, and all the hotels from budget to luxury. The author is a real expert, and the information is fresh and complete. -- Melanie, Amazon revieweraa A great new resource --Travel + Leisureaa Bursting with relevant and exciting information... -- Booklistaaa These useful travel guides are highly recommended... -- Library Journalaaa Pristine coral reefs, tropical waters, rainforests, and rivers meandering through jungles wait to be explored. Parks cover 24% of the country's area, where jaguars and giant anteaters reside. Coastal wetlands are home to monkeys, manatees, alligators and waterfowl. This guide focuses on Copan and the surrounding area, called the Western Highlands. The ancient Maya ruins of Copan, a famed archaeological World Heritage Site, guard the secrets of the ancestors of the modern Mesoamerican men whose faces closely resemble those carved in stelae. The hieroglyphic stairway in Copan is the largest in the Maya world. Weekly open-air markets offer ripe mangos, oranges, bananas, avocados and tomatoes, adding charm and color to the country villages, where most people reside in whitewashed adobe houses with red tile roofs. This guide, by a lifelong resident, tells you everything about the history, the culture, the foods, how to get around, the recommended places to stay and eat, plus the activities and adventures, from cooking classes to monkey-spotting in the cloud forests. Honduras is just south of Belize and Guatemala, north of Costa Rica and Panama. Our guides on each of those countries have been strong sellers.aaa WHY VISIT HONDURAS? Great diving on the second-largest barrier reef in the world. The Maya ruins. 112 protected areas, parks and reserves. River rafting, kayaking, hiking, biking, horseback riding in the midst of exuberant tropical nature. The most protected cloud forests in the world, with 35 reserves. The Rio Platano Reserve of Man Biosphere, a UNESCO World Heritage site. La Moskitia, the largest rainforest region in Central America.aa"
The archaeological past exists for us through intermediaries. Some are written works, descriptions, narratives and field notes, while others are visual: the drawings, paintings, photographs, powerpoints or computer visualizations that allow us to re-present past forms of human existence. This volume brings together nine papers, six of which were presented at a symposium hosted at Brown University. Two papers explore the classical past and medieval visualizations. Three treat the Maya, and one considers the imaging by eighteenth-century antiquarians of British history; yet another ranges broadly in its historical considerations. Several consider the trajectory over time of visualization and self-imaging. Others engage with issues of recording by looking, for example, at the ways in which nineteenth–century excavation photographs can aid in the reconstruction of an inscription or by evaluating the process of mapping a site with ArcGIS and computer animation software. All essays raise key questions about the function of re-presentations of the past in current archaeological practice.
The Skyband Group is an impressive elite site in the urban core of Copán, Honduras, which is dominated by the palatial compounds of Maya sub-royal nobles. Such grandees often bore court titles showing that they were clients and officials of kings, but also competitors for political power, especially just before the dynastic collapse around AD 800.
Copan in modern Honduras was one of the great cities of the Classic Maya. Explorers found ruined temples, plazas, and more hieroglyphic inscriptions and sculpted monuments than in any other site in the New World. But the stones were silent, the script undeciphered.
"The first comprehensive book to focus on the history of African art in American art museums. ... Thirteen essays present the institutional biographies of African art collections in the Cincinnati Museum of Art, the Hampton University Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Barnes Foundation, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Primitive Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Indiana University of Art Museum, the Fowler Museum at UCLA, the University of Iowa Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Menil Collection, and the National Museum of African Art."--back cover.
