Creatures of myth and imagination
An exhibition at the Met Cloisters explores depictions of fantastical hybrid creatures from medieval Europe and the ancient Americas.
Mesoamerica
A Teotihuacán altar at Tikal
Excavations at the Maya site of Tikal in Guatemala have uncovered a painted altar associated with the city of Teotihuacán, located more than 1,000km away in central Mexico. Previous archaeological work at Tikal has uncovered evidence of extensive contact between…
Ancient Maya Teeth: Dental modification, cosmology, and social identity in Mesoamerica
REVIEW BY JOSHUA T SCHNELL The decorated smiles of the ancient Maya, characterised by their carved, incised, and inlaid dental arches, have long fascinated those who have gazed on them, inspiring more than a century of scholarly research. Vera Tiesler…
Tracing the origins of chocolate: A recent study is shedding new light on the domestication and spread of the cocoa bean.
Mesoamerica is often considered the ‘homeland’ of chocolate due to its significance for many ancient cultures in this region, but the cocoa tree, Theobroma cacao, in fact originated in the tropical rainforests of South America. Until now, though, our understanding…
Maya ballgame marker discovered at Chichén Itzá
The ancient Maya ballgame, known as pelota or sometimes pok-ta-pok, played an important ritual and symbolic role in the Mesoamerican culture.
Gods of Thunder: How Climate Change, Travel, and Spirituality Reshaped Precolonial America
Review by Eric Singleton It is a welcome departure to see a scholar stepping outside their regionalised field of study to offer an interconnected view of North American history that is not often discussed. This is what Timothy Pauketat, an…
Mesoamerica Quiz
During which time period did the Olmecs flourish?
Signature style: the artists behind Maya masterpieces
Recent breakthroughs in the study of Maya hieroglyphs have revealed artist signatures on artefacts long considered to be the work of anonymous artisans. Joanne Pillsbury and Laura Filloy Nadal introduce us to the newly identified sculptors and painters who worked in the Maya royal courts.
Sylvanus Griswold Morley
In those days, Mesoamerican archaeology was not for the faint-hearted, and Sylvanus Griswold Morley – ‘physically frail, short of stature, squeaky-voiced and near-sighted’, according to Prudence Rice and Christopher Ward – wasn’t really cut out for it. He suffered stomach…
Sacrificial spider monkey remains offer evidence of gift diplomacy between Teotihuacán and Maya elite
The spider monkey was found along with a golden eagle, rattlesnakes, and artefacts made of jade, shell, and obsidian.
Pre-Columbian Americas Quiz
What name is given to the now-submerged geographical feature which allowed early humans to gain access to the Americas?
Unseen Aztec art in Leiden
Gillis Kersting explores an international exhibition presenting hundreds of Aztec objects on loan from Mexican and European museums, now on display in Leiden.
The Aztecs: Lost civilizations
Five hundred years ago, the spectacular city of Tenochtitlan, power centre of the Aztec empire, upon which modern Mexico City was later built, fell decisively to the Spanish. The conquistador Hernán Cortés had entered the city in 1519 without much…
Acanceh, 1907
In 1906, local inhabitants were dismantling a structure at the site in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula for building materials when they uncovered a 13m- long wall emblazoned with brightly painted reliefs, thought to date to around AD 600-700.
Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs: A Guide to Nahuatl Writing
A leading handbook of scripts and writing that runs to almost a thousand pages, The World’s Writing Systems (1996), edited by Peter Daniels and William Bright, contains scarcely any reference to the Aztec writing system of Mesoamerica. Wikipedia’s entry on…
Secrets of a Maya sweat bath
Recent research on an intriguing assemblage of artefacts excavated from a Classic Maya sweat bath in Guatemala is revealing new details about ritual activity at the unusual structure. This sweat bath at Xultun, named Los Sapos (‘the toads’), was explored…
Modernising Maudslay’s Maya casts
These monumental carvings are just two of the many the adventurous Alfred Maudslay recorded on his travels around Mesoamerican sites in the 1880s and 1890s.
Palace of the Maya Time Lords: discovering two Royal Tombs at El Perú-Waka’
Excavations at the Maya city of Waka’ in Guatemala revealed a stone gallery buried within the palace acropolis. Inside its rooms were relics that told the extraordinary story of its construction, destruction, and reuse as a chamber for subterranean fire rituals. David Freidel, Griselda Pérez Robles, and Juan Carlos Pérez followed these clues to find an ancient Maya royal burial.
CALAKMUL
Alice Stevens ventures deep into the Mexican jungle where, surrounded by the echoing screech of howler monkeys, Calakmul rises above the canopy, and takes a stand as the most impressive Mayan temple remaining today.