A Survey of the Northern Maya Area

1945 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Eric S. Thompson

In a Previous article in American Antiquity I have outlined the four main divisions of Maya history: the formative period (prior to A.D. 320); the Initial Series period, which is the classical age (A.D. 320–900); the Mexican period (A.D. 987–1204); and the Mexican absorption period (A.D. 1204–1540). I have also sketched briefly the three provinces into which the Maya area can be rather readily divided.1 Nevertheless, it is difficult to place exactly the boundary between the central and northern areas. I have included in the former the various sites of southern Campeche—such as Calakmul—which are culturally a part of the Peten, and which appear to have been abandoned at the close of the Initial Series period.

1943 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Eric S. Thompson

Maya history can be divided into four great periods; the formative, the initial series, the Mexican, and the Mexican absorption. The formative period (prior to A.D. 300) comprises the Mamom and Chicanel phases at Uaxactun and coeval phases found elsewhere in the central area (Petén, British Honduras, Chiapas, Tabasco, lower Motagua, drainage), the northern area (Yucatan, northern Campeche, Quintana Roo) and, as we shall see, the southern area.


1950 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wauchope

Stamped or impressed designs on pottery from a group of relatively early sites in northern Georgia provide new data on the origin of several well known motifs of later times, and add to the evidence for a considerable cultural continuity between the archaeological phases of this area.In a previous article for american antiquity (Vol. XIV, pp. 201-9), I summarized the general ceramic sequence in the Etowah Drainage. Fabric impressed pottery seems to be the first majority ware in this area. It gradually decreased in popularity as Mossy Oak Simple Stamped increased and Deptford Bold and Linear Check Stamped appeared. The last named, together with Deptford Simple Stamped, became majority types during Late Archaic or Early Woodland times. In the meantime Woodstock Stamped and Woodstock Incised pottery appeared, but did not reach their frequency peak until Early Swift Creek had presumably degenerated into its later form near the end of the Middle Woodland period. Napier Stamped appeared at this time. Napier and Woodstock pottery strongly influenced the Early Mississippi "Etowah" wares, both stamped and incised. In the latter part of this period, Savannah Stamped intruded briefly, but the Etowah types persisted and finally deteriorated in carefulness of execution, thus evolving into the Lamar pottery of Late Mississippi time.


2006 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Louis Cellauro ◽  
Gilbert Richaud

This article continues from our previous article on François Cointereaux, published in this journal last year. The aim of this second article is to cast light on the dissemination of the technique of pisé, as perfected by this French agriculturalist and architect, in Europe and its colonies. Although Cointereaux is considered today a minor eighteenth-century architect, the fascicles (cahiers) of his École d’Architecture Rurale were translated shortly after their publication in Paris in 1790–91 into six languages (German, Russian, Danish, English, Finnish, and Italian); these in turn attracted the interest of major architects such as Henry Holland (1745-1806) in England, David Gilly (1748-1808) in Germany, and Nicolai L’vov (1751-1803) in Russia, who founded a school of earth construction in Tiukhili near Moscow based on those of Cointereaux in Paris. Through his publications, Cointereaux generated, at the end of the eighteenth century, an almost universal interest in this vernacular material that was both cheap and abundant. His influence outside France was indeed significant, especially in Europe, where many leading architects used pisé for rural and residential buildings. The sudden interest in this vernacular technique, coinciding with the neo-classical age in revolutionary France and in Europe, might seem surprising. Doubtless this success can largely be explained by a desire to revive rural architecture, as well as by the cheap price of the material and its incombustibility. Although we have no means of assessing the number of pupils who attended Cointereaux’s schools, we do know that there were many visitors, notably foreign ones. In the period 1790–95, they were attracted by the novelty of the material and by his demonstrations of its application; this facilitated the wider dissemination of pisé architecture in Europe, North America and Australasia in 1795–1840.


1982 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 396-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Hammond

A plain stela has been identified at the site of Cuello, Belize. On the basis of stratigraphy and the accompanying cache vessels it has been dated to the latter part of the Late Formative, ca. A.D. 100. This date is approximately 200 years older than the earliest Initial Series dated stela so far known in the Maya lowlands, and comparable with some early dated monuments in the Pacific piedmont zone. Stela erection in the lowlands may antedate the secondary use of such monuments as vehicles for dynastic propaganda.


1990 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 570-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Wyllys Andrews ◽  
Norman Hammond

Calibrated radiocarbon dates of 19 samples excavated since 1976 at the site of Cuello, in northern Belize, place the Swasey phase (11 dates) and Bladen phase (8 dates) in the Middle Formative period, rather than in the Early Formative, as 10 dates on charcoal excavated in 1975 and 1976 indicated. The post-1976 dates for both phases fall between about 1100 and 400 B.C., and the two sets do not appear to differ significantly. All except 3 of the 35 archaeologically acceptable dates from the later Lopez Mamom and Cocos Chicanel contexts fall within the conventionally accepted ranges for those phases. A mixture of old charcoal from the environment or from an unidentified pre-Swasey occupation with the 1975–1976 samples may explain their early radiocarbon ages, although why such mixing should have affected only the 1975–1976 samples is not known. This reassessment of the early Cuello sequence aligns it with comparable cultural developments elsewhere in the Maya area and suggests that the earliest farming communities of northern Belize perhaps derived from the highlands of Guatemala.


2019 ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
Aleksei K. Solovyov ◽  
Bi Guofu

The term “window” in architecture usually stands for an opening in a wall or roof for penetration of natural light, sunrays and fresh air in premises. Recently, the requirement of contact with environment is added to this condition. It is especially relevant for residential buildings where rooms are considered residential if they have windows. The energy consumption of a building depends on sizes, form and location of windows. In winter, windows cause huge heat losses, in summer, on the other hand, large heat enters a building via the windows and is required to be removed by means of air conditioning. Moreover, windows are used for penetration of natural light in premises, which assists in saving of large amounts of power for artificial illumination. This article discusses partial solving the problem of the energy efficiency of residential buildings by determining the most efficient area of windows in terms of energy spending for compensation of heat losses via windows in winter, elimination of heat penetration through them in summer and energy losses for artificial lighting throughout the year. The analysis of the results of calculation of power consumption for residential premises in conditions of monsoon climate of the Russian Far East and Northern areas of China (PRC) is provided.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Karen Moukheiber

Musical performance was a distinctive feature of urban culture in the formative period of Islamic history. At the court of the Abbasid caliphs, and in the residences of the ruling elite, men and women singers performed to predominantly male audiences. The success of a performer was linked to his or her ability to elicit ṭarab, namely a spectrum of emotions and affects, in their audiences. Ṭarab was criticized by religious scholars due, in part, to the controversial performances at court of slave women singers depicted as using music to induce passion in men, diverting them from normative ethical social conduct. This critique, in turn, shaped the ethical boundaries of musical performances and affective responses to them. Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Aghānī (‘The Book of Songs’) compiles literary biographies of prominent male and female singers from the formative period of Islamic history. It offers rich descriptions of musical performances as well as ensuing manifestations of ṭarab in audiences, revealing at times the polemics with which they were associated. Investigating three biographical narratives from Kitāb al-Aghānī, this paper seeks to answer the following question: How did emotions, gender and status shape on the one hand the musical performances of women singers and on the other their audiences’ emotional responses, holistically referred to as ṭarab. Through this question, this paper seeks to nuance and complicate our understanding of the constraints and opportunities that shaped slave and free women's musical performances, as well as men's performances, at the Abbasid court.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 635-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Murray

This article uses an extant collection of television news inserts and other television ephemera to examine women's employment at Midlands ATV. Focusing on the years between the first Midlands News broadcasts in 1956 until major contract changes across the ITV network in 1968, it examines the jobs women did during this formative period and their chances for promotion. In particular it suggests that contemporary ideas of glamour and their influence in screen culture maintained a significant influence in shaping women's employment. This connection between glamorous television aesthetics and female employees as the embodiment of glamour, especially on screen, did leave women vulnerable to redundancy as ‘frivolity’ in television was increasingly criticised in the mid-1960s. However, this article argues that the precarious status of women in the industry should not undermine historical appreciation of the value of their work in the establishing of television in Britain. Setting this study of Midlands ATV within the growing number of studies into women's employment in television, there are certain points of comparison with women's experience at the BBC and in networked ITV current affairs programmes. However, while the historical contours of television production are broadly comparable, there are clear distinctions, such as the employment of a female newscaster, Pat Cox, between 1956 and 1965. Such distinctions also suggest that regional news teams were experimenting with the development of a vernacular television news style that requires further study.


2015 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Sahlins

The “most able Cartesian philosopher,” Jean Denis (1635–1704), undertook a series of blood transfusions in 1667 and 1668 in Paris for therapeutic purposes, especially to cure madness, using the blood of animals. A range of actors and institutions opposed the controversial experiments, and the high law court of Paris condemned the practice in 1668. This article examines the attitudes toward animals and animal blood on both sides of the transfusionist debate and the resulting insistence on the “beast within” human nature that found a renewed expression at the beginning of the Classical Age.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Evans

A striking characteristic of Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice is the lack of clarity as to when the participants are human and when angelic. Scholarly opinion has been divided on the question. Fletcher-Louis, for instance, argued for an “angelomorphic” theology in Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Scholars regard this text as an example of mysticism at Qumran, but the root of the term “mystic” (to conceal) warns of the difficulties inherent in any analysis of mystical texts because such texts arise from religious experience of a transcendent divine presence only accessible subjectively. In a previous article on ambiguity in the First Song it was argued in support of Fletcher-Louis that the text was deliberately constructed to create ambiguity between angelic agents and sectarian participants for rhetorical purposes. This article resorts to insights from cognitive neuroscience in order to reconsider current scholarly opinion on this matter.


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