Mayan Cosmology Depicted in Ancient Murals: Understanding Gender, Death, and Religious Pedagogy in Mayan Civilization during Classical and Preclassical Era

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Research into ancient Mayan murals in San Bartolo, Bonampak, and Rio Azul demonstrates that the Mayans used paintings to educate people and to portray religious beliefs. The intricacy of their painting technique and the use of natural pigments elicit a durable, complex representation of the Mayan culture rooted in their cosmology of mystic deities called the Popol Vuh. The Mayan cosmology illustrates a concoction of good and evil residing in different realms of their world during life and death. Through detailed analyses of murals and their respective typologies in the three historical sites aforementioned, this paper explores prevalent dichotomies and ontological beliefs in Mayan communities during the classical and preclassical era. In particular, it provides insight into the Mayans’ conception of gender roles rooted in astronomy, their perception of death as a spiritual resurrection of the kings, and their religious education pedagogy dominated by elites and priests.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37436.0