A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This landmark publication written by Michael D. Coe and published by the Grolier Club in 1973 was in many ways a catalyst for subsequent advances made in ancient Maya art and writing over the past five decades. Despite its many important contributions, including the first publication of the precolumbian book now known as the "Códice Maya de México," the Grolier exhibition was at the center of a heated debate regarding the display and publication of unprovenanced Maya objects. This debate continues, fueled by the continued looting of archaeological sites and the commodification of ancient Maya materials. Ongoing debates delve on the proper ways to weigh the benefits of scholarship against its potential impact on the commercial value of objects, the use and management of “orphaned objects” by scholars and museums, and questions related to repatriation, among others. This session will highlight the contributions of this important milestone in Maya studies and offer critical assessments of the problematic issues surrounding the Grolier exhibition and its outcomes, which are of central concern to Maya archaeologists, epigraphers, and art historians.

Other Keywords
Maya: Classic • Iconography and epigraphy • Iconography and Art • Collections • Museums • Ceramic Analysis • and Repatriation • Maya: Postclassic • Chronology • Ethics

Geographic Keywords
United Mexican States (Country) • Belize (Country) • North America (Continent) • Peten (State / Territory) • Yucatan (State / Territory) • Republic of Guatemala (Country) • Orange Walk (State / Territory) • Cayo (State / Territory) • Corozal (State / Territory) • Belize (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • Between a Rock and a Hard Spot: Museum Collections and Mesoamerican Archaeology (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dorie Reents-Budet. Ronald Bishop.

    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 changing relationship of US art and natural history museums and other collections-holding institutions and the field of archaeology as anthropology is examined in this presentation. We assess the past 100+ years’ amassing of archaeological objects as cultural curios, aesthetic...

  • Chamá Vessels Revisited: Advances and Questions on a Northern Maya Highland Painting Style (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose Raul Ortiz. Francisco Saravia.

    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. During the Late Classic period, a distinct painting style in ceramics emerged in the northern Maya highlands of Guatemala, revealing both the mastery of artisans and the worldview of the Maya. The Chamá style, whose vessels were manufactured on the banks of the Chixoy River, shows clear...

  • De la mano de Michael Coe a las manos de los artistas estilo códice: Cincuenta años de estudios (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana García Barrios.

    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 Grolier exhibition commissioned by M. Coe in 1973 came to researchers as an inescapable reference that remains today. His studies on codex-style vessels, so defined by him, opened the door to new studies from different perspectives and approaches that are reviewed here. This study...

  • Emplacing a Classic Maya Ritual: Locating Deity Impersonation through Space and Time (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mallory Matsumoto.

    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. Michael Coe’s “The Maya Scribe and His World” (1973) and the 1971 Grolier Club exhibition for which it was produced marked the first sustained treatment of scribes and artists in scholarship on Classic Maya civilization. It also highlighted the wealth of information that ceramics and...

  • The Grolier Codex and the early 1960s (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Miller.

    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 Grolier Codex was reportedly found with other objects, including the Kislak box, the Dumbarton Oaks turquoise mask, and other objects in the United States and abroad. In this brief talk, these objects and their context will be addressed, as well as the likelihood of their having been...

  • Looting Enigmas and Contextual Narratives at La Corona (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jocelyne Ponce. Marcello Canuto. Tomás Barrientos.

    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. Over two dozen hieroglyphic panels looted in the 1960s from the site of La Corona, formerly known as “Site Q,” ended up in private collections around the globe. Some of these panels are featured in the Grolier Catalog. While the monuments have provided extensive information on the role...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • A Time before Color: Revisiting the Codex Style (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Doyle.

    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. In “The Maya Scribe and His World”, Michael D. Coe recognized a “Maya artist of enormous distinction” when analyzing the hand of the painter of the codex-style drinking cup now known as the Metropolitan Vase. This presentation is a reexamination of individual hands in the codex style...

  • Understanding the World of the Scribe: Challenges and Opportunities of Cataloguing the Kerr Photographic Collection of Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joanne Baron. Frauke Sachse. Daniel Boomhower.

    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 majority of photographs in “The Maya Scribe and His World” were taken by Justin Kerr. Kerr’s development of rollout photography transformed the field, allowing Maya ceramics to be documented and studied more easily. With the creation of the searchable online database Mayavase.com,...

  • When, Where, and Wahy: Wielding the Wahy Over Time at El Zotz (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Brandeberry.

    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. In “The Maya Scribe and His World,” Michael Coe published some of the first detailed photographs of a series of vases depicting ghoulish, supernatural characters identified by the Maya as “wahy.” With names like “Deer Death,” “Head Louse Spider Monkey,” and “Red Bile Death,” Coe and...

  • Xibalba in Technicolor: The Popol Wuj and the Interpretation of Ancient Maya Art (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Oswaldo Chinchilla.

    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. An enduring contribution of “The Maya Scribe and His World” was Michael Coe’s call for attention to the Popol Wuj as a source for the interpretation of ancient Maya deities. Developed in subsequent works, this approach has yielded important insights on ancient Maya art and religion, and...