Iconography and epigraphy (Other Keyword)

176-200 (373 Records)

Making sense of a Holy Trinity: the Dioses Narigudos of Classic period Central Veracruz (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Annick J. E. Daneels.

Dioses Narigudos are a series of ceramic figurines that are extremely frequent during the Classic period in a very restricted area of South Central Veracruz. They occur generally in ritual deposits under floors of major and minor buildings, combining female and male representations of different hierarchy. Current interpretations relate them to a solar deity or a water deity, none of which identifications apply to all three main figurine types. Their attributes and the contexts in which they are...


Male Court Dress on Late Classic Maya Vases (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Cheek.

Dress is an object made up of other objects. I combine a practice approach with the chaîne opératoire and behavior chains methods to analyze technical and social acts involving dress objects. The analysis starts with one segment of the actions involving dress—the actual act of dressing. The study includes only court scenes that appear to memorialize historic events, although some of the observations and conclusions can be applied to other kinds of scenes and other media. After identifying the...


The Many Meanings and Uses of Tomo-Kahni Rock Art (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only David Whitley.

This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Rock Art Documentation, Research, and Analysis" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Certain current rock art debates involve methodological rather than empirical issues (as incorrectly but commonly assumed), reflecting researchers’ unfamiliarity with principles of symbolic analysis and the resulting functions and meanings of rock art sites. One key error concerns the fact that symbols are...


Marine Species and Sea-Related Representations in Ninth- to Fourteenth-Century Casma Iconography on the North-Central Coast of Peru (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Noémie Galland.

This is an abstract from the "Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent archaeological work has revealed that the north-central coastal region of Peru had been the territory of a cultural entity that we recognize today as “Casma” between the ninth and fourteenth centuries AD. Some aspects of this culture remain largely unknown and require further investigation, particularly its iconography. It...


Material Proxies and Stylistic Indicators: On the Adoption of Foreign Forms of Governance at Xochicalco, Morelos, Mexico (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesper Nielsen. Christophe Helmke. Claudia Alvarado. Silvia Garza.

This is an abstract from the "Interactions during the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic (AD 650–1100) in the Central Highlands: New Insights from Material and Visual Culture" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With the collapse of Teotihuacan, the central Mexican highlands were plunged into a period of social restructuration, known as the Epiclassic (AD 650–950). This period saw the emergence of independent city-states, rising in the wake of a highly...


Material Signatures for Idolatry in Sixteenth- to Eighteenth-Century Viceregal Yucatan (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorraine Williams-Beck.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rampant idolatry and Mayan resistance to the religious conquest, narrated in Early Viceregal Yucatan documents, bespeaks an underlying visual component for continuing traditional religious practices. Franciscan rural chapels, churches, and convents interior mural paintings and architectural facade sculptural details provide the material signatures to...


The Maya Wall Paintings of Chajul (Guatemala): Iconography (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Katarzyna Radnicka-Dominiak.

This is an abstract from the "The Maya Wall Paintings of Chajul (Guatemala)" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The revealing of Chajul mural paintings has opened a completely new chapter in the history of colonial art of Latin America. Most of today’s known examples of colonial art are located in churches or other buildings related to religious spheres, while Chajul murals cover walls of private houses of Ixil Maya families. Not only the location of...


Maya-Teotihuacan Relations Viewed from Front D at the Plaza of the Columns (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only William Fash. Nawa Sugiyama. Barbara Fash. Mariela Pérez Antonio. Alexis Hartford.

Two distinct excavation contexts from Front D in the Plaza of the Columns Complex yielded pictorial representations in different artistic media that strongly suggest the presence of Maya artists in Plaza 50, decades prior to the famous Teotihuacan "Entrada" of 378 C.E. in the Petén. Excavations at this civic-administrative structure at the heart of the ceremonial core of Teotihuacan have revealed a sequence of numerous plaster floors in Plaza 50 associated with Structure 44, whose form is...


Mayan Spelling Conventions: Late Preclassic through Late Classic (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only David Mora-Marin.

This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper deals with the topic that inspired me to study with John Justeson: it traces the major spelling practices of Mayan writing from the Late Preclassic through the Late Classic periods. It employs the evidence from Late Preclassic and Early Classic inscriptions, some of which I have documented myself, as well as the...


Media and Meaning in “The Maya Scribe and His World” (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin Earley.

This is an abstract from the "A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among Michael Coe’s many contributions to Maya studies with his landmark show and publication “The Maya Scribe and His World” was the observation that imagery on Classic Maya ceramics is different from imagery on carved stone monuments. Coe notes this gap between ceramic and stone...


Members of the Community: Animal Sculptures as Kin (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only S. Margaret Spivey-Faulkner.

This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological evidence at the Fort Center archaeological site in south Florida indicates that rooftop statuary depicting animals were treated as members of the community. This evidence is found in the watery interment of these sculptures alongside human community members over...


Merchants, Mercenaries, and Migration in the Art of Cacaxtla (AD 600–900) (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew D. Turner.

This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 1: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. John Pohl’s groundbreaking investigations of the tandem roles of merchant exchange, alliance building, and migration have caused us to reconceptualize the multiethnic sociopolitical landscapes of central Mexico and Oaxaca in the Epiclassic and Postclassic periods and the social actors that populated them. In the...


Mesoamerican Death Imagery Oversimplified (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Baquedano.

This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples were exceptionally aware and observant of their natural world and the cycles of nature, particularly the alternation of the seasons. Many of their representations were aptly identified with the dry or...


Metallurgy, Shamanism, and Ideographic Currency in Bering Strait: Scythian Descent? (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Owen Mason.

This is an abstract from the "From the Altai to the Arctic: New Results and New Directions in the Archaeology of North and Inner Asia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Holocene Bering Strait acted as a filter, marked by intermittent material and technological cross-strait transfers; first of obsidian, ca. 3000 BCE, storage or serving ceramics adopted ca. 1000 BCE, of metallurgic iron ca. 200 CE, rare cast-bronze objects ca. 1150 CE, armor...


Metamorphoses of Human and Non-Human Agents Within the Shaft Tomb Burials in Ancient West Mexico (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristian Ramirez.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will contextualize the diverse range of materials found in several shaft tombs throughout West Mexico. I argue that there are examples of ontological ecologies connected to animals and the seasons by understanding the connections between the landscape and the materials found in the tombs. I explore how the metamorphoses of several animals such...


Metaphor in Precolumbian Mesoamerica: In Honor of John Justeson (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Dinkel.

This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. John Justeson is well-known for contributions to the documentation of Mesoamerican indigenous languages and writing systems. Justeson’s work on metaphor has received less attention, given that work on metaphor in precolumbian Mesoamerica is just now gaining traction. Justeson’s work stands out as being the first to adopt a...


Michael D. Coe and the Códice Maya de México (Grolier) Controversy (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Coltman. Andrew Turner.

This is an abstract from the "A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The controversial display of “Códice Maya de México” at the Grolier Club in 1971 and its subsequent publication by Coe in “The Maya Scribe and His World” opens debate regarding archaeologists’ involvement with unprovenienced objects. The sudden appearance of the previously unknown...


Mirrors in the Adriatic Region: Holders, Contexts, Exchanges (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Giulietta Guerini.

This is an abstract from the "And They Look into the Mirror for Answers: Mirror Analysis to Understand Its Holder" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Adriatic Sea (seventh–second century BC) was a place where consistent encounters and trades happened between the many peoples and cultures who lived on its shores (Etruscan, Picenes, Daunians, Greeks, Illirian . . .). This paper focuses on the use of mirrors in this area by analyzing the...


Mississippian and Oneota Entanglements: Iconography and Ritual in the Lower Mississippi Valley (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only David Dye.

This is an abstract from the "Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mississippian and Oneota entanglements were often violent, typically resulting in intercommunity conflict, loss of life, and population displacement. However, Mississippians in the northern Lower Mississippi Valley may have comprised a sufficiently large territorial bloc to have successfully thwarted Oneota...


The Mixteca-Puebla International Style as a Mesoamerican Marker in Postclassic Greater Nicoya: A Reevaluation (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Larry Steinbrenner.

This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The beautiful polychrome ceramics of Pacific Nicaragua’s Sapoá period (800–1300 CE) have long been touted as the southernmost manifestation of the Mixteca-Puebla phenomenon in lower Central America. Traditionally, these ceramics have been treated as de facto cultural markers of two independent migrant groups of Mesoamerican...


Moche Women: Multiple Realities and Alternative Powers (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Erell Hubert.

The growing breadth of data coming from scientific excavations of Moche sites in different valleys along the north coast of Peru has led to major advances in our understanding of the diverse ways of being Moche as well as the complex relationship between religious and political powers. How gender relations played into these Moche experiences however remains relatively understudied. Here, I specifically focus on the place of women in Moche society through time and space. Some women have now been...


Modeling the Cosmos: Making Sense of "Rim Rider" Effigy Bowl Iconography in the Central Mississippi River Valley (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Madelaine Azar.

This is an abstract from the "Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Symbolically charged ceramic rim-effigy bowls, characterized by figural head and tail adornments, are hallmarks of the Late Mississippian period in the central Mississippi River valley (CMV). Hundreds of whole rim-effigy bowls, most often depicting serpents, birds, or humans, have been collected at sites...


Molding a New Order: Ideological Transitions and Gulf Coast-Maya Lowland Interaction, AD 800–1000 (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew D. Turner.

This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As numerous studies have noted, changes in themes, compositions, and content in Maya stone monuments from the ninth and tenth centuries present a departure from their Classic counterparts, which in turn appears to reflect changes in social structure and...


The Monumentalization of Ma’at in the Tomb of Amenemhet: The Role of Text and Image in a System Approach to the Interpretation of Middle Kingdom Tombs (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Tritsch.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Receiving little scholarly attention to date, most prior work on the tomb of Amenemhet at Beni Hasan has either focused on the translation of the titles and autobiography inscribed in and around the door jamb or on the description of the tomb scenes and accompanying decorations. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of this richly decorated structure,...


Mountain Lords: Divine Game Keepers of the Ancient Maya and their Mesoamerican Context (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandre Tokovinine.

This is an abstract from the "Supernatural Gamekeepers and Animal Masters: A Cross-Cultural Perspective" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores a set of mythical narratives on Classic Maya pottery (550-800 C.E.), which involve Huk Si’ip, the divine keeper of animals, and Itzam Kokaaj, the celestial creator of animals. Most of these narratives form part of a larger theogony cycle where the elderly gods of animals, sky, earth, and fire...