Acknowledgments

Mazariegos, Oswaldo Chinchilla

I don't have an account

Create an account to save content, highlights, and notes to your personal bookshelf.

If you do not have access to the eBook content on the A&AePortal via an institutional subscription, you can purchase an individual subscription from your account. Learn more about subscriptions.

Purchase a subscription

Save Cite Share

Free

Acknowledgments

Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos

Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya

Acknowledgments

Author

Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00019.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-17868

Acknowledgments

My research on Mesoamerican myths began during my tenure as curator of the Museo Popol Vuh, where I had the privilege of working with an outstanding collection of ancient Maya ceramic vessels with mythical representations. This book builds partly on a previous volume I wrote, Imágenes de la Mitología Maya (2011), which delved into the mythical themes represented on selected objects from the Museo Popol Vuh collection. The contents of chapters 6 to 9 in this volume were originally outlined in that book. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 also incorporate content from articles that I published previously in the journals Ancient Mesoamerica, Estudios de Cultura Maya, and Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl.

A Junior Faculty Fellowship from Yale University allowed me to devote adequate time to write this book, which is published with assistance from the Frederick W. Hilles Publication Fund of Yale University. I owe special thanks to Justin Kerr, who waived all charges for his photographs to honor the memory of his late wife, Barbara. Jorge Pérez de Lara, Michel Zabé, Nicholas Hellmuth, Dmitri Beliaev, Dennis Jarvis, Inga Calvin, Guido Krempel, Inés de Castro, and Hernando Gómez Rueda also allowed me to reproduce their valuable photographs. For similar reasons, I thank Daniel Aquino, director of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología in Guatemala City; Diana Magaloni and Megan O’Neil, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Susana Campins, from the Museo Vigua de Arte Precolombino y Vidrio Moderno in Antigua Guatemala. I am thankful for the assistance of Juan Antonio Murro at Dumbarton Oaks, and María Teresa Uriarte and Teresa del Rocío González Melchor at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas unam). In addition, Bruce Love, Heather Hurst, Lucia Henderson, David Stuart, Alexandre Tokovinine, and Christophe Helmke allowed me to reproduce their fine artwork, while Leticia Vargas de la Peña shared unique images from Ek’ Balam. Valentina Glockner Fagetti and Samuel Villela Flores kindly shared unpublished narratives that were especially relevant for this book. Numerous colleagues and friends provided comments and insights or contributed in various ways to this volume, although the final outcome is my sole responsibility. I thank Bárbara Arroyo, Karen Bassie-Sweet, Edwin Braakhuis, Claudia Brittenham, Laura Alejandra Campos, Víctor Castillo, Michael Coe, Jeremy Coltman, Enrique Florescano, Julia Guernsey, Christophe Helmke, Stephen Houston, Timothy Knowlton, Alfredo López Austin, Camilo Luin, Mary Miller, John Monaghan, Jesper Nielsen, Barbara de Nottebohm, Guilhem Olivier, Dorie Reents-Budet, Karl Taube, Alejandro Tovalín, Ruud van Akkeren, and Erik Velásquez. At Yale University Press, I thank Katherine Boller for her enthusiastic welcome to my proposal, and Tamara Schechter, Heidi Downey, Sarah Henry, and Laura Hensley for their editorial input.

Previous chapter Next chapter

Book details

BOOKArt and Myth of the Ancient Maya

Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00019

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-17866

This nuanced account explores Maya mythology through the lens of art, text, and culture. It offers an important reexamination of the mid-16th-century Popol Vuh, long considered an authoritative text, which is better understood as one among many crucial sources for the interpretation of ancient Maya art and myth. Using materials gathered across Mesoamerica, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos bridges the gap between written texts and artistic representations, identifying key mythical subjects and uncovering their variations in narratives and visual depictions. Central characters—including a secluded young goddess, a malevolent grandmother, a dead father, and the young gods who became the sun and the moon—are identified in pottery, sculpture, mural painting, and hieroglyphic inscriptions. Highlighting such previously overlooked topics as sexuality and generational struggles, this beautifully illustrated book paves the way for a new understanding of Maya myths and their lavish expression in ancient art.

Author

Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date April 2017 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300207170

EISBN 9780300247008

Illustrations 152

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

Base text size -

Chapter images ()