13th Baktun Rebirth at Izapa: discovery vistas with new technologies in applied structural archaeology are writing Preclassic history

Summary

Norman's latest "Izapa Sacred Space" book (2013; in English and Spanish) will be introduced, highlighting shared culture contacts near and far. Izapa popularity peaked at the end of 2012 and is being rekindled with the 13th baktun zenith sun (August 13) and new year (Sept 21) calendar monuments and applied technologies. New Izapa civilization discoveries in Preclassic Mesoamerican history have been examined with Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) digital imaging technology recording of Izapa sculpture initiated in 2013 and completed in 2014 under INAH project permit by CIR (Center for Izapan Research, ARCON Inc.) with Dr. Jason Jones (University of Warwick, England) that dovetails with Robert Rosenswig's Lidar mapping of Izapa. These new technologies confirm NWAF's Izapa topo map and superior accuracy of NWAF's primary Izapa reference works (Norman 1973, 1976, 1980, Lowe et al. 1982), challenged by artistic sculpture re-drawings (Clark & Moreno 1999, 2007) that should now be classified with other artistic renderings, suitable for general illustration, but "for analytical purposes, the improved outline tracings of Norman, prepared from photographs made with optimum lighting [achieved peer review stamp of accuracy] should be used." (Lose et al. 1982: 159, Fig. 8.1 caption).

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage