Exploring the Ancient Maya: Image, Text, and Artefact

Catalog description

Few topics in ancient studies are experiencing such profound and revelatory change as that of the Ancient Maya—a complex society that covered what is today southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador. The decipherment of Maya script and advances in archaeological techniques, including aerial LiDAR scanning and isotopic analysis, are combining with art historical and literary sources to transform our understanding of a culture that ranks among the most famous, but enigmatic, on this continent. The ability to read Maya inscriptions has created the first historical archaeology for the ancient Americas, giving access to an Indigenous voice that has been silent for more than a millennium—with implications not only for scholarship but for the efforts of descendent peoples in asserting a modern Maya identity with existing Latin American states. This course will be a broad-based, contemporary look at archaeological practice as it operates through multiple disciplines, all in pursuit of the single goal of illuminating a vibrant and living past.