Codices, Purpura, and Pirates: The Enduring Legacy of Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Trailblazer, dirt archaeologist, influencer, historian, disrupter, curator, socialite, ethnographer, polyglot. Most of us are familiar with Zelia Nuttall mostly through her brilliant research on the Mixtec codex that, until recently, carried her name on the catalogue of the British Museum where it is currently kept. Only the tip of the iceberg in her diverse career, Nuttall has recently been recognized as one of the most prolific Mesoamericanists and anthropologists at the turn of the twentieth century. This was no small feat, especially for a female scholar with Mexican heritage, and a single mother, who constantly had to fight restrictive paradigms, academic chauvinism, and personal hurdles. In this presentation we will revisit three aspects of Nuttall’s research legacy: codices, purpura, and pirates. Drawing from our recent fieldwork along the Oaxacan Pacific coast and previously unpublished sources, we will demonstrate how these seemingly disparate lines of interests are closely interconnected from a transhistorical and global perspective. Through her interdisciplinary vision and acute attention to detail, Zelia Nuttall not only laid the foundations for contemporary reconstructions of these transcontinental maritime and terrestrial networks, but also for a methodological framework that is best suited for collaborative research today.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38766.0