Iconography and Art (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cheryl Claassen.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An exploratory look at Helmet shell use during the Woodland period and Busycon columella "wind jewels" in the Mississippian period. The investigation is informed by Mesoamerican shell symbolism.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Miller.

One of the distinctive features of one of the principal Maya solar deities, the Jaguar God of the Underworld, is the twisted cord—nicknamed "cruller" for the German doughnut over 100 years ago by Eduard Seler—that loops under the eyes (with their characteristic inward curl for pupils) and twists between them, sometimes ending under the deity’s jaguar ears. This feature, perhaps to be associated with fire and burning, takes up its place on the nose of a different deity, Tlaloc, in Central Mexico,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark McCoy. Mehrdad Aghagholizadeh. Nicos Makris. Mara Mulrooney. Britton Shepardson.

This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Monuments are a critical window into people’s values, beliefs, and social memories. The destruction of monuments is especially important since it can shed light on how these aspects of societies change over time. We describe new research aimed at understanding the destruction of moai (statues) on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Our first goal is to build a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Khaghani. Whitney Goodwin. Marcello Canuto.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This thesis explores the relationship between iconography and material analysis of Ulúa polychromes in Honduras between 450 – 1200 CE. From a dataset of 56 ceramic pieces, first analyzed iconographically which has been the main form of analysis for these artefacts. Second, the 56 pieces were sampled for INAA and processed through a computer program. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Critchley.

Spear-thrower devices held a role around the world as a primary weapon and tool before slowly falling out of favor in certain areas for other projectile weapons. While it is widely accepted that spear-throwers were used by the people of the ancient central Andes, comparatively little research has gone into the role that they had as weapons of war, hunting tools, and objects of ceremonial reverence. Many Andean societies have rich traditions of art and iconography, often portraying human and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlos Alvarez. Lynneth Lowe.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The abundance of pottery stamps, variety of designs and quality of its craftsmanship during the Postclassic period, contrasts with the scarce studies regarding these special artifacts whose analysis can contribute to the knowledge of significant aspects of ancient Maya culture. These stamps were used to imprint decorative motifs on the human body, fabrics,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriela Saldaña. Tia Watkins. Emma Messinger. Rosamund Fitzmaurice. Jaime Awe.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Classic Maya graffiti (AD 300–800) provides a unique perspective of individual experiences, with figures etched onto plastered surfaces that were added as secondary elements within existing architecture. In the Maya lowlands, graffiti is typically found within monumental architecture, as these contexts favor preservation in tropical environments. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emanuela Rudnicka.

This is an abstract from the "A Decade of Multidisciplinary Research at Castillo de Huarmey, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The technological, stylistic, and iconographical aspects of decorated gourds are yet insufficiently addressed by researchers of precolumbian Andean art. This paper investigates Wari pyro-engraved gourd vessels that have been discovered during the excavation process at Castillo de Huarmey since 2013. The archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlotte Ives. Colin Quinn. Lacey Carpenter. Hannah Lau.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of ceramics provides archaeologists with a closer look into the domestic life of people from the past. Whether it be daily wares designed for continuous use by close-knit familial groups, or ceremonial pieces used occasionally for specific audiences, ceramics play a critical role in the ritualization of meals. Despite their varying purposes,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dillon Gisch.

This is an abstract from the "What Have You Done For Us Lately?: Discrimination, Harassment, and Chilly Climate in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 1792, nine catalogues of surviving ancient Roman replicas of the Knidian Aphrodite—the first monumental image of an unclothed woman in Western art—have been compiled. During this time, the number of known ancient replicas has increased by two orders of magnitude, yet analyses of this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis Clark. Jeffrey Blomster.

This is an abstract from the "Cholula to Chachoapan: Celebrating the Career of Michael Lind" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While the Mixtec region of Oaxaca is famous for its polychrome ceramics, including the iconographically rich “codex style” pottery, in this paper we argue that non-polychrome ceramics also played a significant role in conveying particular messages associated with ongoing social and political rearticulations during the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Sears.

This is an abstract from the "Mesoamerican Figurines in Context. New Insights on Tridimensional Representations from Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation explores how miniature ceramic figurines were incorporated into the daily lives, rituals and intentions of the Late Classic period Maya of the Alta Verapaz region. Ceramic figurines are also the remnants of Maya musical instrumentation and have been recovered from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tsuimei Huang.

This is an abstract from the "Two Approaches to Archaeological Jades: Source Characterization and Social Valuation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Jade ear ornaments with human-animal motif, dating to 2800-2300 BP, have been the most distinctive jewelry from prehistoric Taiwan. Since the first ear ornament of this kind became known in 1982, a total of 41 pieces of such items have been unearthed from 9 archaeological sites. These objects are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Wingfield.

This is an abstract from the "The Precolumbian Dotted-Diamond-Grid Pattern: References and Techniques" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dotted grids abound in art of Pacific Nicaragua southward through Costa Rica and Panama to Ecuador, whether on painted and incised ceramic vessels or chiseled stone sculptures. These images reflect ancient fiber arts now lost to the elements in these tropical lands. The designs, recorded on clay and stone, appear to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brendan Stanley. Tara D. Smith.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Formerly identified cosmograms for the Olmec culture include the Dallas Plaque and the Las Limas figure. Politically, this vision is centered by Olmec rulers which is visible through the iconographic interpretations of works including La Venta Altar 4, Oxtotlitlan Mural 1, among others. These interpretations build on the work of previous scholars and are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Ladron De Guevara.

This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Images from Las Higueras mural paintings as well as from El Tajín bas reliefs depicting ball players and sacrifice related to the ritual will be presented and discussed. Musicians, ballplayers, and divinities seem to have specific roles. Were the losers or the winners sacrificed? Chroniquers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Coltman.

This is an abstract from the "The Rollout Keepers: Papers on Maya Ceramic Texts, Scenes, and Styles in Honor of Justin and Barbara Kerr" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is hard to overstate the rich intellectual benefits that iconographers and epigraphers have been given through the lens of Justin Kerr’s remarkable Maya Vase Database. It not only brought to light a world of gods, rulers, courts, and vivid bestiary but also revealed complex...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erik Velásquez García. Sandra Balanzario Granados. Alexandre Tokovinine.

This is an abstract from the "The Rise and Apogee of the Classic Maya Kaanu’l Hegemonic State at Dzibanche" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En abril de 2009 los arqueólogos Enrique Nalda Henández, Sandra Balanzario Granados y Karina González Hernández excavaron una ofrenda (cache) en el interior de una subestructura del Edificio 5 de Ichkabal, megalópolis maya del Preclásico ubicada en el sur de Quintana Roo. Dicha ofrenda contenía fragmentos de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Billie Follensbee.

This is an abstract from the "The Ties That Bind: Cordage, Its Sources, and the Artifacts of Its Creation and Use" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While only small fragments of actual cordage have been recovered in Gulf Coast Olmec excavations, depictions of cordage figure prominently in Olmec and Olmec-related art. Reliefs of string, rope, and knots appear as costume components on Colossal Heads, on figures in the round, and in relief images on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Nowak.

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. Dr. Kent F. Reilly and many of the scholars associated with the Mississippian Iconography Workshop have used ethnography and folklore to support interpretations about ritual and cosmology. This talk discusses how ancient landscapes can, in turn, inform folklore, ritual communication, and iconography....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucia Henderson.

This paper examines the foreign connections evidenced by the material record of Early Classic Kaminaljuyu. The author discusses the ways in which public art, architecture, and elite funerary contexts evolved at Kaminaljuyu during this time, evaluating how these changing styles may have tied into evolving relationships with distant sites and regions such as Teotihuacan, Veracruz, and the Maya lowlands. The Early Classic relationship between Kaminaljuyu and Teotihuacan has, in many ways, eclipsed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marlen Hinojosa. Claudia Garcia-Des Lauriers. Matthew Des Lauriers.

Offering 1 from Los Horcones is an assemblage of figurine masks, whistles, rattles and vessels that offers an interesting opportunity for analysis that provides information of the auditory, olfactory, and visual experience of this small ritual. The offering, initially thought to be simply a collection of figurines and masks, were later discovered to be whistles—small musical instruments whose simplicity belies the importance of the meanings they encoded. Experimental archaeological analysis...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Liana Jiménez Osorio.

This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse II: Current Research in Oaxaca Part 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Una manera de conocer los santuarios de la época precolonial es a partir de la evidencia arqueológica, sin embargo, debido al tiempo que ha transcurrido y, principalmente, a su destrucción durante la colonización en 1521, la evidencia material con que se cuenta es escasa y fragmentaria, siendo necesario recurrir a otras fuentes....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tanya Chiykowski-Rathke.

This is an abstract from the "Coloring the World: People and Colors in Southwestern Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have largely defined the Trincheras Tradition by pottery, in particular the distribution of purple painted ceramics. The purple pigment, found in both specular and non-specular forms, was part of a bichrome and polychrome regional tradition that flourished across the Sonoran Desert between 700-1200 AD. Many...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claire Barker. Samantha Fladd. Kelley Hays-Gilpin.

Widespread archaeological evidence—including egg shells and skeletal remains recovered from archaeological sites as well as imagery on pottery, kiva murals, and rock art—suggests that macaws, their feathers, and their imagery played important roles in ancient Puebloan society. Ethnographic accounts also indicate the importance of macaws to ancient Puebloan peoples and modern groups. Macaws have been interpreted as indicators of exchange, aspects of intricate ritual systems, and indexes of social...