Mexico and Central America

2023 Sep 23

Teen Saturdays at the Museum! ¡Sábados de Jóvenes en el Museo!

Repeats every week every Saturday until Sat Dec 09 2023 except Sat Sep 30 2023, Sat Oct 07 2023, Sat Oct 14 2023, Sat Oct 28 2023, Sat Nov 04 2023, Sat Nov 18 2023, Sat Nov 25 2023, Sat Dec 02 2023.
1:00pm to 1:30pm

1:00pm to 1:30pm
1:00pm to 1:30pm
1:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge & Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge

two smiling teens and teen saturdays logo

In-Person Youth Program

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Traditional Celebrations of Central America... Read more about Teen Saturdays at the Museum! ¡Sábados de Jóvenes en el Museo!

Zuni, Hopi, Copan: Early Anthropology at Harvard, 1890–1893
John Gundy Owens. 4/18/2023. Zuni, Hopi, Copan: Early Anthropology at Harvard, 1890–1893. Edited by Curtis M Hinsley, Pp. 360. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press and Dumbarton Oaks Publications. BUY THIS BOOKAbstract

Zuni, Hopi, Copan: Early Anthropology at Harvard, 1890–1893 publishes one hundred letters from John Gundy Owens to Deborah Harker Stratton, currently held in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. Owens was one of the first graduate students in anthropology at Harvard; his poignant letters to “Miss Debbie” trace a budding relationship of affection in late Victorian America and offer vivid, highly entertaining accounts of his fieldwork at Zuni pueblo in New Mexico, Hopi mesa villages in Arizona, and the Maya site of Copan in Honduras.

Tragically, Owens died at age twenty-seven in Copan; Stratton never married and kept the letters until her own death, nearly fifty years later. Introductory essays by Curtis M. HinsleyLouis A. Hieb, and Barbara W. Fash contextualize the annotated letters and shed new light on early anthropological training in the United States.

Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 4: Yaxchilan
Barbara W. Fash, Alexandre Tokovinine, and Ian Graham. 12/6/2022. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 4: Yaxchilan. Edited by Barbara W. Fash, Pp. 108. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Peabody Museum Press and Dumbarton Oaks Publications. BUY THIS BOOKAbstract

The goal of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions is to document in photographs and detailed line drawings all known Maya inscriptions and their associated figurative art. As monuments continue to be discovered, the CMHI series is ongoing and far from complete. It has been instrumental in the remarkable success of the ongoing process of deciphering Maya writing, making available hundreds of texts to epigraphers working around the world, in addition to assisting studies among Maya communities and scholars.

This folio-sized volume documents thirty stelae at Yaxchilan, a Classic Maya city located on the Usumacinta River in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Precisely rendered line drawings and three-dimensional scans bring out details of the monuments that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. These illustrations are accompanied by descriptions of the stelae in English and Spanish.

The Copan Sculpture Museum
Barbara W. Fash. 9/12/2011. The Copan Sculpture Museum, Pp. 216. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOKAbstract

 

Ancient Maya Artistry in Stucco and Stone

 

The Copan Sculpture Museum in western Honduras features the extraordinary stone carvings of the ancient Maya city known as Copan. The city’s sculptors produced some of the finest and most animated buildings and temples in the Maya area, in addition to stunning monolithic statues and altars. The ruins of Copan were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980, and more than 150,000 national and international tourists visit the ancient city each year.

Opened in 1996, the Copan Sculpture Museum was initiated as an international collaboration to preserve Copan’s original stone monuments. Its exhibits represent the best-known examples of building façades and sculptural achievements from the ancient kingdom of Copan. The creation of this on-site museum involved people from all walks of life: archaeologists, artists, architects, and local craftspeople. Today it fosters cultural understanding and promotes Hondurans’ identity with the past.

In The Copan Sculpture Museum, Barbara Fash—one of the principle creators of the museum—tells the inside story of conceiving, designing, and building a local museum with global significance. Along with numerous illustrations and detailed archaeological context for each exhibit in the museum, the book provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and culture of the ancient Maya and a model for working with local communities to preserve cultural heritage.

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