The Murals of Bonampak
Author: Mary Ellen Miller
Publisher:
Published: 1986
Total Pages: 176
ISBN-13: 9780691040332
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Description for this book, The Murals of Bonampak, will be forthcoming.
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The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court
Author: Mary Miller
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2013-07-01
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780292744363
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLocated within the deep tropical rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico, the Maya site of Bonampak is home to the most complete and magnificent mural program of the ancient Americas. In three rooms, a pageant of rulership opens up, scene by scene, like pages of an ancient Maya book. Painted c. AD 800, the murals of Bonampak reveal a complex and multifaceted view of the ancient Maya at the end of their splendor during the last days of the Classic era. Members of the royal court engage in rituals and perform human sacrifice, dance in extravagant costumes and strip the clothing from fallen captives, acknowledge foreign nobles, and receive abundant tribute. The murals are a powerful and sophisticated reflection on the spectacle of courtly life and the nature of artistic practice, a window onto a world that could not know its doomed future. This major new study of the paintings of Bonampak incorporates insights from decades of art historical, epigraphic, and technical investigation of the murals, framing questions about artistic conception, facture, narrative, performance, and politics. Lavishly illustrated, this book assembles thorough documentation of the Bonampak mural program, from historical photographs of the paintings—some never before published—to new full-color reconstructions by artist Heather Hurst, recipient of a MacArthur award, and Leonard Ashby. The book also includes a catalog of photographs, infrared images, and line drawings of the murals, as well as images of all the glyphic texts, which are published in their entirety for the first time. Written in an engaging style that invites both specialists and general readers alike, this book will stand as the definitive presentation of the paintings for years to come.
To Be Like Gods
Author: Matthew G. Looper
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2010-01-01
Total Pages: 295
ISBN-13: 029277818X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWinner, Association for Latin American Art Book Award, 2010 The Maya of Mexico and Central America have performed ritual dances for more than two millennia. Dance is still an essential component of religious experience today, serving as a medium for communication with the supernatural. During the Late Classic period (AD 600-900), dance assumed additional importance in Maya royal courts through an association with feasting and gift exchange. These performances allowed rulers to forge political alliances and demonstrate their control of trade in luxury goods. The aesthetic values embodied in these performances were closely tied to Maya social structure, expressing notions of gender, rank, and status. Dance was thus not simply entertainment, but was fundamental to ancient Maya notions of social, religious, and political identity. Using an innovative interdisciplinary approach, Matthew Looper examines several types of data relevant to ancient Maya dance, including hieroglyphic texts, pictorial images in diverse media, and architecture. A series of case studies illustrates the application of various analytical methodologies and offers interpretations of the form, meaning, and social significance of dance performance. Although the nuances of movement in Maya dances are impossible to recover, Looper demonstrates that a wealth of other data survives which allows a detailed consideration of many aspects of performance. To Be Like Gods thus provides the first comprehensive interpretation of the role of dance in ancient Maya society and also serves as a model for comparative research in the archaeology of performance.
An Album of Maya Architecture
Author: Tatiana Proskouriakoff
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 1976-04
Total Pages: 168
ISBN-13: 9780806113517
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWith the imagination of an artist and the precision of a scientist, Tatiana Proskouriakoff has captured in pictures thirty-six restorations of magnificent Maya buildings as their builders saw the scenes more than a thousand years ago. Facing her painting of each structure is a documented text of archaeological findings and a line drawing of the existing remains. First issued by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1946, this important volume is returned to print in a new format by the University of Oklahoma Press.
The Madrid Codex
Author: Gabrielle Vail
Publisher:
Published: 2009-03-31
Total Pages: 472
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume offers new calendrical models and methodologies for reading, dating, and interpreting the general significance of the Madrid Codex. The longest of the surviving Maya codices, this manuscript includes texts and images painted by scribes conversant in Maya hieroglyphic writing, a written means of communication practiced by Maya elites from the second to the fifteenth centuries A.D. Some scholars have recently argued that the Madrid Codex originated in the Petén region of Guatemala and postdates European contact. The contributors to this volume challenge that view by demonstrating convincingly that it originated in northern Yucatán and was painted in the Pre-Columbian era. In addition, several contributors reveal provocative connections among the Madrid and Borgia group of codices from Central Mexico. Contributors include: Harvey M. Bricker, Victoria R. Bricker, John F. Chuchiak IV, Christine L. Hernández, Bryan R. Just, Merideth Paxton, and John Pohl. Additional support for this publication was generously provided by the Eugene M. Kayden Fund at the University of Colorado.
The Prophetic Mayan Queen
Author: Leonide Martin
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2019-01-22
Total Pages: 511
ISBN-13: 164146318X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Readers are brought along for a journey filled with every imaginable emotion in the course of a heroine’s lifetime. As a result, a world that is stunningly beautiful and complete without ours—but intractably connected—surges through the pages of the book." – Reader Views She was born to serve the Goddess Ix Chel. But K'inuuw Mat is destined to continue the Palenque (Lakam Ha) dynasty by marriage to Tiwol, fourth son of famous ruler Pakal. Trained in prophetic arts, she uses scrying to foresee the face of the man with whom she will bear the dynastic heir—but it is not her husband's image. She is shocked upon arriving at Palenque to recognize that face as her husband's older brother, Kan Bahlam. They are immediately attracted, sharing deep interest in astronomy. Though she resists, the magnetic force of their attraction propels them into forbidden embraces, until Kan Bahlam designs a bold plan that would solve his inability to produce a son—if he can gain his brother's cooperation. Set in the splendor of Lakam Ha's artistic and scientific zenith, royal family conflicts and ambitions play out in a tapestry of brilliant Mayan accomplishments in calendars, astronomy, architecture, arts, and secret language codes that will astound people centuries later. As K'inuuw Mat contends with explosive emotions, she must answer the Goddess' mandate to preserve Mayan culture for future generations. Her passion with Kan Bahlam leads to a pale daughter and bold son who carry this out as their civilization begins the decline and eventual collapse her prophetic vision foresees. One great cycle rolls into the next . . . Contemporary Mexican archeologist Francesca and her partner Charlie, a British linguist, venture into Chiapas jungles to a remote Maya village, seeking to unravel her grandmother's secrets. The hostile village shaman holds the key, but refuses to share with outsiders the scandal that leads to foreign blood and ancient Palenque lineages. Only by re-claiming her own shamanic heritage can Francesca learn the truth of who she is, and bring her dynasty into the present.
Maya Roads
Author: Mary Jo McConahay
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2011-08
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 1569769249
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn Maya Roads, McConahay draws upon her three decades of traveling and living in Central America's remote landscapes to create a fascinating chronicle of the people, politics, archaeology, and species of the Central American rainforest, the cradle of Maya civilization. Captivated by the magnificence and mystery of the jungle, the author brings to life the intense beauty, the fantastic locales, the ancient ruins, and the horrific violence. She witnesses archaeological discoveries, the transformation of the Lacandon people, the Zapatista indigenous uprising in Mexico, increased drug trafficking, and assists in the uncovering of a war crime. Over the decades, McConahay has witnessed great changes in the region, and this is a unique tale of a woman's adventure and the adaptation and resolve of a people.
The Cambridge History of War: Volume 2, War and the Medieval World
Author: David A. Graff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2020-10-01
Total Pages: 865
ISBN-13: 1108901190
DOWNLOAD EBOOKVolume II of The Cambridge History of War covers what in Europe is commonly called 'the Middle Ages'. It includes all of the well-known themes of European warfare, from the migrations of the Germanic peoples and the Vikings through the Reconquista, the Crusades and the age of chivalry, to the development of state-controlled gunpowder-wielding armies and the urban militias of the later middle ages; yet its scope is world-wide, ranging across Eurasia and the Americas to trace the interregional connections formed by the great Arab conquests and the expansion of Islam, the migrations of horse nomads such as the Avars and the Turks, the formation of the vast Mongol Empire, and the spread of new technologies – including gunpowder and the earliest firearms – by land and sea.
Route of the Mayas
Author:
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 422
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJourney through the mysterious Mayan ruins of the Yucatan and Central America and learn about the fascinating Mayan civilization through this lavishly illustrated and information-packed book, with more than 1,000 drawings, photos and maps. Colorful cross sections and plans of city-states illustrate the Route of the Mayas. National ads/media.
Maya Color
Author: Sally Jean Aberg
Publisher: Abbeville Press
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 188
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKColor-and the symbolic ways that the Maya of Mexico and Central America paint their homes, places of worship, and dwellings for their dead-is the focus of this breathtakingly beautiful and achingly poignant new book. No one who picks up this volume will ever again think of the region solely for its sunny beaches and ancient ruins, nor picture the Maya as a vanished people of the distant past. Through dazzling photographs, vivid travel tales, and the Mayas own poetic voices, readers will come to know the modern Maya as remarkable survivors who continue to sow their deified corn, commune with their gods, and paint life into their color-drenched village walls. Nearly a decade ago Jeffrey Becom (author and photographer of Mediterranean Color) turned his attention from the Old World to the New and together with his wife, Sally Jean Aberg, discovered a realm where color is not merely a matter of preference but a powerful statement of belief. Come along as the pair trek through a steamy jungle in search of ancient murals, join a highland shaman giving birth to the soul of a house, and crisscross the parched Yucatán Peninsula as villagers celebrate the Days of the Dead with dynamite, incense, flowers, rum, prayers, and paint. In the process they discover that the colors of a corn yellow house, a blood red altar, and a jade green tomb serve as a connective cord stretching back to the painted pyramids. Maya Color is a visual and verbal feast. New York Times critic Paul Goldberger calls Becoms images "poised between the making of art and the documentation of architecture. . . . He takes a tiny swath of the vernacular landscape and makes of it a composition with the brilliance and intensity of an abstract painting."
