scholarly journals Lord of the Maya Creations on his jaguar throne: the eternal return of Elder Brother God L to preside over the 21 December 2012 transformation

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S278) ◽  
pp. 203-213
Author(s):  
John B. Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Eternal Return ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
The World ◽  
Western Scholarship

AbstractSpeculation about what ancient Maya texts have to say about 2012 is becoming a global phenomenon in popular culture. This speculation, largely apocalyptic, is more often based on acquaintance with historical Western interpretations than on familiarity with the texts themselves and their cultural contexts. This paper approaches the 2012 phenomenon through close readings of Maya texts and images considered within the contexts of historical and contemporary Maya culture and Western scholarship. It focuses on images of mythological events depicted on two Late Classic Maya vessels: the ‘Vase of the Seven Gods’ (Kerr no. 2796) and the ‘Vase of the Eleven Gods’ (Kerr no. 7750). These images are interpreted as representing deities, gathered in ‘cosmogonic conclave’, preparing to re-create the world with their sacrifices at the last completion of a great cycle and the beginning of a new 5,125-year 13-Bakˈtun Maya ‘Long Count’. The rites of passage are presided over by an enigmatic Venus-warrior/sacrificer deity previously known only as God L. God L's principal name and nature had remained undeciphered and his identity obscure until the author's researches resulted in the decipherment and ‘reading’ presented here. This study offers an explication of why God L, whom the author has demonstrated is the Maya god of tobacco among his many aspects, takes the senior role in presiding over these 13-Bakˈtun completion rituals and why it is reasonable to hypothesize that the same entities would be back for the fulfillment of the present cycle in 2012.

Stature at Tikal, Guatemala: Implications for Ancient Maya Demography and Social Organization

1967 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Haviland
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Class Division ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Simple Class ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Maya Site

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis of stature of the prehistoric population from the Maya site of Tikal, Guatemala. From this analysis, based on 55 skeletons from the Tikal burial series, three important conclusions emerge with respect to ancient Maya demography and social organization. (1) Tikal was settled by people of moderate stature, and this remained relatively stable over several centuries. A marked reduction in male stature in Late Classic times may be indicative of a situation of nutritional stress, which may have had something to do with the collapse of Classic Maya civilization. (2) Stature differences between those buried in tombs and others at Tikal suggest that, in the last century B.C., a distinct ruling class developed at Tikal. This simple class division of rulers and commoners may have become more complex in Late Classic times. (3) There was a marked sexual dimorphism in stature between males and females at Tikal. This is probably partially genetic and partially a reflection of relatively lower status for women as opposed to men in Maya society.

scholarly journals Happy Christmases are All Alike; Each Unhappy Christmas is Unhappy in its Own Way

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-184
Author(s):  
Vivien Blanchet
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Postal Service ◽  
Eternal Return ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Liminal Spaces ◽  
The World ◽  
Academic Publications ◽  
Ritual Practices

The French postal service has been opening a bureau for Father Christmas every winter since 1962. Sixty employees are responsible for responding to letters to Father Christmas. In 2018, more than one million children corresponded with him. But what would happen if someone were to write to Father Christmas, developing a close epistolary relationship with him? This short story explores such a scenario. Pierre M. and Father Christmas have during many years maintained regular and personal correspondence. Yet Father Christmas’s attitude seems to have changed. Pierre M. reveals the evolution of their secret relationship to his mysterious friend. On substance, the short story offers an original perspective on modern marketplace mythologies. Previous studies depict myths as liminal spaces in which people negotiate contradictory meanings, practices and realities. The myth of Father Christmas thus involves compromises between ignorance and knowledge, life and death, the sacred and the profane. The short story tells how they evolve to define the identity of the protagonists and the world they live in. It highlights how they are embodied in hybrid artefacts like letters to Father Christmas and extraordinary servicescape. The short story also questions the performative force of the myth. It shows that it results from the interpretative work and ritual practices of the protagonists involved in an unstable actantial system structured around an enlightened person, an ignorant person and a mythical character. This is constantly negotiated throughout sociotechnical interactions, which, as in the case of witchcraft, may or may not realize the myth. On form, the short story adopts the principle of the eternal return inherent to the myth: it is plotted as a series of small variations on recurring themes and structural repetitions. Intertextual references to academic publications, literary tradition and popular culture enrich the narrative by extending it beyond its textual boundaries.

Sak Tz’i’, a Classic Maya Center: A Locational Model Based on GIS and Epigraphy

2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Anaya Hernández ◽  
Stanley P. Guenter ◽  
Marc U. Zender
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Information Systems ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Maya Lowlands

AbstractThe ancient Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions of the upper Usumacinta region record an intensive interaction that took place among its regional capitals. The precise geographic locations of some of these sites are presently unknown. Through the application of the Gravity Model within the framework of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), we present the probable locations and possible territorial extents of a few of these: Sak Tz’i’, Hix-Witz, and the “Knot-Site.” On this occasion, however, we concentrate our discussion on the role that the kingdom of Sak Tz’i’ played in the geopolitical scenario of the region. It is our belief that this case study constitutes a good example of how, through a conjunctive approach that integrates the archaeological with the epigraphic data, GIS can represent an excellent analytical tool to approach archaeological issues such as the political organization of the Maya Lowlands during the Late Classic period.

Understanding Late Classic Maya Mortuary Ritual in Caves

2018 ◽  
pp. 133-158
Author(s):  
Amy R. Michael ◽  
Gabriel D. Wrobel ◽  
Jack Biggs
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Dental Health ◽  
Health Data ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Mortuary Practice ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
Analytical Approaches

Bioarchaeology frequently investigates dental health in burial populations to make inferences about mortuary variability within and between ancient groups. In this chapter, micro- and macroscopic dental defects were examined in a series of ancient Maya mortuary cave and rockshelter burials in Central Belize. The nature of mortuary cave ritual use and funerary performance in the Late Classic is widely debated in the literature. This study utilizes two analytical approaches, mortuary practice and paleopathology, to better understand mortuary variability between two site types that may be distinguished by social status in life. Ethnohistoric accounts focused on mortuary activities in the Late Classic period have described sacrificial victims as individuals originating outside of the elite population. To test these accounts, this study compares the dental health data of individuals from non-elite (rockshelter) populations to elite (cave) burial contexts.

At the Edge of the World: Caves and Late Classic Maya World View

1999 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 388
Author(s):  
Jorge Rogachevsky ◽  
Karen Bassie-Sweet
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
The World

HELD CAPTIVE BY SCRIPT: INTERPRETING “TAGGED” PRISONERS IN LATE CLASSIC MAYA SCULPTURE

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Burdick
Keyword(s):  
Classic Maya ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Secondary Meaning ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry

AbstractAlthough captive images have been examined for the Classic Maya, we lack a thorough understanding of depicted captives as a pictorial motif. Furthermore, the convention of “tagging” Late Classic Maya captive sculptures with identifying texts was understood a century ago, yet the ways in which these scripts functioned beyond the role of label are not well known. This layering of identifying texts onto captive figures presents interesting avenues of scholarly inquiry for understanding relationships among ancient Maya texts, figural images, and actual bodies. In this article I explore captive iconography and then suggest that the captive tagging convention is related to the tagging of possessed objects. The artistic tendency toward tagging the thigh with more frequency than other bodily regions suggests a secondary meaning for such markings, and I propose that these tags alluded to the post-sacrifice practice of removing the femur as a war trophy.

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