Ancient Maya: Sacred Blood & Conjured Serpent

Catalog description

The Ancient Maya: Sacred Blood and Conjured Serpent. ANTH 221N Ancient Maya Civilization (3) (GS;GH;IL)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. Great civilizations emerged independently in several parts of the world beginning about 5500 years ago. Most students have had some exposure to the great Old World civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China), but know comparatively little about their counterparts in the New World. Among these, the Classic Maya (AD 250-900) are the most familiar, and are heavily featured in popular culture. Many students have (or will) visit Maya sites as tourists, and be impressed by the flamboyant archaeological remains of these ancient people. Despite their visibility, the Maya are widely misunderstood and heavily sensationalized. ANTH 221N traces the development of ancient Maya culture from about 10000 BC through its eventual conquest by the Spaniards in the 16th century. The primary focus will be on the Classic period, when Maya civilization achieved unparalleled heights in architecture, art, astronomy, mathematics, and writing. The course content makes extensive use of images of sites, artifacts, and artwork to introduce and immerse students to the particularities of the Ancient Maya worldview. The Maya were participants in a much wider tradition of complex civilization in the region archaeologists call Mesoamerica, and several lectures will place them in this more general context. A good amount of content in this course will come from research done by members of the Penn State Anthropology Dept., which has a long tradition of Mesoamerican/Maya research since the early 1960s, and has heavily influenced both the study of Mesoamerican societies and complex cultures in general. Content and topics in the course will also situate Maya peoples, both ancient and modern, in relation to important topics in the contemporary world such as environmental sustainability and degradation, ethnic identity, and state formation. This course will fulfill basic BA and GenEd requirements (GS, GH, IL). It may also be used to fulfill an ANTH BA or ANTHS BS additional course requirement.