viernes, 22 de abril de 2011

The renowned Mayanist Merle Greene Robertson passed away




 Fotos from Mesoweb



Merle Greene Robertson was a great example as an artist, historian, photographer and mayanist, she fought for the preservation of the writing, iconography and art of in the research of the Maya World. Merle rest in piece and be sure that your work will shine and gives us more road to walk.

All the best.
The Mayanist



Here some more about her life and work: 
Thanks to Mesoweb Marc Zender and Joel Skidmore



In Memoriam: Merle Greene Robertson
by Marc Zender and Joel Skidmore
(Friday, April 22, 2011) The renowned Mayanist Merle Greene Robertson passed away in San Francisco today. Artist, art historian, photographer, and Mayanist, Merle was widely known for her extensive contributions to the investigation and preservation of the art, iconography, and writing of Maya civilization. 

Merle was born in Miles City, Montana, on August 30, 1913, a small town she once memorably described as "a little cattle crossing in the road" (Barnhart 2003:1). She moved to Great Falls when she was eight, a place which held her "fondest memories of childhood ... the Missouri River, Giant Springs, the sand hills, high mountains, mountain goats, and those great blue Montana skies, those wide-open spaces" (Robertson 2006:25). Merle's descriptions of her childhood environment in interviews and her autobiography Never in Fear (2006) are invariably painterly, mingling broad strokes of color with intimate descriptions of the natural surroundings, and she regularly associated these with her own development as an artist. As Peter Mathews (2006:13) wrote in his foreword to Merle's autobiography:
Two aspects of [Merle's] youth in Montana were to have a large influence over the direction of her life. One was an interest in Native American culture. Merle's family spent their vacations beside a mountain lake at the edge of Glacier National Park. Merle frequently went with her father to visit his friends, Blackfoot Indian chiefs, and it was here that she learned Indian sign language. The other influence was the great artist Charles M. Russell, who lived in Great Falls. The young Merle spent many an afternoon on his front porch observing and learning about painting.
In her second year of high school, Merle's family relocated to Seattle, where she later began university studies. Given the twin loves of her childhood, it is perhaps hardly to be wondered at that Merle took a degree in art. "Later," as Peter Mathews (2006:13) recounts, "she went to the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Here for three summers she studied watercolors, oils, photography, and mural painting from Mexico's top mural instructor, earning her MFA from the University of Guanajuato."
Merle's artistic background and practical experiences living and working in Mexico were critical preparation for her life's work as a Mayanist, which began in the summer of 1961 when she joined the University of Pennsylvania Museum project at Tikal, Guatemala.
[Merle] spent three summers making architectural drawings of the Central Acropolis, and also started recording monuments by means of rubbings. This technique had been used before in the Maya area, principally by John H. Denison Jr. at Chichen Itza and sites in the central part of the Yucatan peninsula. However, Merle Greene brought the technique to an art form, and also showed how useful the rubbings could be as a means of documentation of Maya relief sculpture. (Mathews 2006:13)
Merle would eventually make "about four thousand" rubbings (Barnhart 2003:4) during the course of a distinguished career spanning some five decades (Doyle 2000). These are now all critically important documents, many of them preserving details of the carved surfaces of monuments which have since deteriorated through erosion or been destroyed by the increasingly damaging depredations of looters. Today, more than 2,000 of Merle's rubbings are housed in the Merle Greene Robertson Collection of the Rare Book and Manuscript Department of Tulane University's Latin American Library in New Orleans (Hernández and Dressing 2011). Since 1993, Merle's entire collection of rubbings has been available to scholars and amateurs on CD, and they can also be viewed online at Mesoweb 



Merle's work in preserving Guatemala's Maya cultural heritage through these rubbings was acknowledged by the Museo Popol Vuh in 2004, 

when Merle was awarded the Orden del Pop (Museo Popol Vuh 2004). 

As Peter Mathews (2006:15) has noted
[O]ne could be forgiven for thinking that part-time exploring and "rubbing" would be quite enough to fill a life, but we're only just beginning to recount Merle's accomplishments. Her first love of the jungle was at Tikal, and in Mexico it has always been Palenque. During the 1970s she worked tirelessly, documenting the sculpture of Palenque. ... The result of Merle's Palenque work is brilliantly documented in the sumptuous series The Sculpture of Palenque, published by Princeton University Press [Robertson 1983-1991]. In this study, ... Merle has shown in great detail ... exactly how the beautiful stucco sculptures were built up, layer by layer, by the Palenque artists. She has investigated the paints that were used to color the sculptures, searching out pigment sources in the Palenque region and painstakingly experimenting to reproduce the exact colors used by the Palenque artists. In the process, she was able to document the entire method of making beautiful stucco sculptures for which Palenque is so famous.
Merle's rubbings, photographs, paintings, and drawings of Palenque's architecture and sculpture represent a lasting resource. In 1993, the Mexican government acknowledged Merle's remarkable contributions to the study of Palenque with an Order of the Aztec Eagle (Mathews 2006:17). 

Of equally lasting importance to the study of Palenque specifically, but also to Maya studies in general, have been Merle's series of Palenque Round Table conferences. Begun in December, 1973, and continuing annually and then semi-annually in eight separate meetings, the last held in June, 1993, the Mesa Redonda de Palenque produced numerous breakthroughs in the presentation and publication of Maya studies, producing ten volumes of conference proceedings edited by Merle and others. These critical meetings have since been continued by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico, with Merle in the capacity of Honorary President (Mathews 2006:16). 

In 1982, Merle founded the Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, a non-profit organization which has conducted important research in Mesoamerican art, iconography, and epigraphy. PARI has published numerous scholarly monographs and the quarterly PARI Journal and has sponsored the archaeological investigations of the Cross Group Project at Palenque. 

Merle's contributions to the study of the Maya will never be forgotten, so important is her legacy of documentation of primary materials in the form of drawing, paintings, photographs, and rubbings. But she will be sorely missed by her family, friends, colleagues, students, and legions of admirers.K'a'ayi usik sakik'aal.
 
References

Barnhart, Ed
2003 Periodic Interview Series: Merle Greene Robertson. Transcript of an interview with Merle Greene Robertson, December 2003. Maya Exploration Center


Doyle, John
2000 Digging Deep: Archaeologist Merle Greene Robertson Has Spent Four Decades Uncovering Treasures of Mayan Civilization. San Francisco Chronicle, September 4, 2000, A-5. Available online: http://articles.sfgate.com/2000-09-04/news/17659641_1_mayan-ruins-mayan-civilization-archaeological


Gidwitz, Tom
2002 Doyenne of Mayanists: Merle Greene Robertson Has Spent a Lifetime Chronicling Mesoamerican Art. Archaeology 55(3):42-49. Available online: www.archaeology.org/0205/abstracts/merlegreene.html



Hernández, Christine, and David Dressing
2011 Merle Greene Robertson Collection, 1920s-2010. Latin American Library Manuscripts Collection 133: lal.tulane.edu/collections/manuscripts/robertson_merle


 Mathews, Peter
2006 Foreword to Never in Fear, by Merle Greene Robertson, pp. 13-18. San Francisco: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute.


Museo Popol Vuh
2004 Dra. Merle Greene Robertson: Orden del Pop 2004. Museo Popol Vuh: www.popolvuh.ufm.edu/eng/popMerle2004.htm


Robertson, Merle Greene
1974-1996 Palenque Round Table (Mesa Redonda de Palenque). 8 volumes. Various presses.

1983-1991 The Sculpture of Palenque. 4 volumes. Princeton University Press.
2006 Never in Fear. San Francisco: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute.

miércoles, 20 de abril de 2011

La pasajera y el Indígena... ¿Diferencia de clases?

  Agradecemos a Azbel por el arte, como siempre.


Ahora que mucha gente vacaciona, evitemos el racismo y desprecio hacia nuestros hermanos indígenas, convivamos y aprendamos junto con ellos. 

Se les comparte esta historia la cual desconozco el autor, no dudo que este inspirado en muchos casos reales ya que en lo personal me ha tocado intervenir en varias situaciones similares.

A veces la gente tiene miedo de romper los protocolos como en esta historia, pero cuando no se pierde nada y haces un bien común conscientizando vale la pena.  

Los invito a seguir el ejemplo así alcanzaremos poco a poco un mundo más libre y digno en armonía.

Saludos y que disfruten sus vacaciones.

El Mayista



La pasajera y el Indígena

En un avión, iniciado el vuelo, una "señora" oprime insistentemente el timbre para llamar a la sobrecargo

- ¿Cuál es el problema, Sra.? - Pregunta la sobrecargo

- ¿Es que no lo ve? - Responde la dama

  Me colocaron junto a un sucio indígena. No soporto estar al lado de uno de estos seres repugnantes. ¿¿¡¡No tiene otro asiento!!??

- Por favor, cálmese... -dice la sobrecargo- Casi todos los asientos están ocupados. Pero, voy a ver si hay un lugar disponible

La sobrecargo se aleja y vuelve de nuevo algunos minutos más tarde:

- Sra., como yo pensaba, ya no hay ningún lugar libre en la clase económica. Hablé con el comandante y me confirmó que no hay más sitios disponibles. No obstante, tenemos aún un lugar en primera clase.

Antes de que la dama pudiera hacer el menor comentario, la sobrecargo sigue:

- Es del todo inusual permitir a una persona de la clase económica sentarse en primera clase. Pero, dadas las circunstancias, el comandante encuentra que sería escandaloso obligar a alguien a sentarse junto a una persona tan repugnante.

Todos los pasajeros alrededor, observaban la escena, indignados.

Entonces, la sobrecargo, dirigiéndose al indígena, le dice: 

 
- Si el Sr. lo desea, tome su equipaje de mano, ya que un asiento en primera clase le espera.

Y los pasajeros, que sorprendidos, presenciaban la escena, se levantaron y aplaudieron.


Debemos de seguir este ejemplo

viernes, 15 de abril de 2011

Ancient Maya Mathematics and Culture in the Yucatan



Ancient Maya Mathematics and Culture
Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

May 21-27, 2011

Led by Dr. Michael Grofe


This course is designed for participants all ages and varying levels of knowledge to learn about ancient Maya history, culture, and mathematics as they travel through the ruins of the Yucatan Peninsula. Day trips to the ruins of Coba, Chichen Itza and Ek Balam will be complimented by evening lectures about how the Maya calendar works and the latest discoveries in ancient Maya astronomy.

Dr. Grofe is a foremost authority on ancient Maya astronomy with cutting edge research regarding the evidence for an ancient understanding of the 26,000 year cycle of precession.  His vast knowledge of Maya astronomy, mathematics, and hieroglyphics will make this course an unparalleled learning experience.

A cancellation from one of our partner universities has led to openings in the course and a special offer for last minute sign ups.  If you join the course at this late date, you'll receive a 2011 MEC Research Membership, which includes access to JSTOR, a 2011 Mayan Calendar, and 10% off all of our travel courses (including this one) and educations tours throughout the year.

* For more details on the tour and to sign up, link the graphic above



miércoles, 13 de abril de 2011

2012 : The True Mayan Prophecy Documentary


* click on the image to watch the movie instead of buying trash food bad for your health


We are aproaching to the year 2012, and people search in internet finding hundreds of conspiracy and fake sites about the real Mayan situation. Even in twitter is amazing how hundreds of people talk about the topic without knowing the truth about it. 

There have been many seekers of the truth that became false prophets lying about the truth of the Maya and the 2012. In this documentary 2 world peace Nobel prize winners and Mayan elders help with their influence as massive public icons, to clear the big lie that has confused many people telling their point of view about the 2012 and Mayan prophecies. 

This video isn´t for Scholars, but it is redirected to general people avoiding misunderstanding and all the Domino effect that has being caused about this topic, it is a message to help people getting back to the road of the Maya. 
Please inform yourself and study.


Greetings.


The Mayanist



Ivan Suvanjieff and Dawn Engle, husband-and-wife creators of the new documentary 2012: The True Mayan Prophecy, say those doomsayers are full of it, intent on cashing in on fear. And they've got real-life Mayans to back up their claims.



"The Mayans are getting more and more ticked off by all of the people who are using 'The Mayans say that the world is going to end in 2012' to rake in billions of dollars," says Engle.


The two founded the PeaceJam foundation in the mid-'90s and met Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a real-life Mayan who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, on a trip to Guatemala. At the request of Menchú Tum, they're telling what they say is the only accurate version of the Mayan 2012 prophecy: that the world is in disrepair and that humanity needs to do its best to fix it.


Suvanjieff and Engle's 49-minute documentary is part History Channel lesson, part man-on-the-street interview and part expert interview, including sit-downs with Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and a group of Mayan elders to discuss what they think the 2012 end-of-days scenario means; the film incorporates footage the two have shot over fifteen years of working with Nobel Prize winners during PeaceJam events. It's enlightening, to be sure, and while it lacks the intrigue and excitement of a true apocalyptic scenario (i.e., no tidal waves or volcanic eruptions), it makes for a noble effort.


The genesis of this documentary came in November 2009, when Menchú Tum was in Denver for a PeaceJam fundraiser. People kept asking her questions about 2012, Engle recalls, and she said, 'I really think that Hollywood is doing something bad by making people think the world is going to end. If people in Hollywood want to end it in 2012, that's fine, but they need to make a big donation to humanity before they die.'


Menchú Tum and the Mayan elders returned to Colorado in July, for appearances at the Denver Biennial as well as a workshop on 2012 at Naropa University in Boulder. The audience there wanted easy answers — Are the 2012 bloggers and writers correct? Will the world end in two years? they asked. They were very frustrated with this, says Suvanjieff of the Mayans' trip.


The documentary explains the Mayan calendar and how the end-of-the-world prophecy came to be. And Suvanjieff and Engle think they've got the upper hand when it comes to whose prediction should be believed — which is why the works of Boulder-based author and 2012 blogger John Major Jenkins aren't mentioned in the movie. "We didn't want to propagate misinformation," Engle says. "We wanted to let the Mayans speak for themselves."


The only opposing views cited in the film are those of José Argüelles, maker of the thirteen-month Dreamspell calendar, which is based on the Mayan calendar; and Terrence McKenna, the new-age writer who wrote on LSD and predicted the world would end in 2012. "We wanted to show where the hysteria came from," Engle explains.


sábado, 9 de abril de 2011

Maya at the Lago 2011 in North Carolina (April 14-17)



 
This month of April Maya at the Lago will have guest such as Dr. George Stuart, Dr. Kent Reilly, Dr. Nomand Hammond,  Dr. Patricia McAnany, Dr. Bill Ringle and Dr. Marc Zender hope you can attend and enjoy the Mayan evening. The curios thing is that the "lago" word is in spanish and means lake, and the name is a mixture between english and spanish and means Maya at the lake.


Regards.

The Mayanist.


American Foreign Academic Research and Davidson Day School welcomes you to historic Davidson, North Carolina for the first, annual Maya at the Lago Conference. The Maya at the Lago Conference (M@L) is a four-day "Everything Maya" event, including lectures, workshops and social gatherings. The M@L provides a venue for many of the world's top Maya archaeologists to share their experiences and current research with colleagues and the general public. Regardless of your experience, Maya at the Lago has an offering that will be right up your sleeve.





jueves, 7 de abril de 2011

Homenaje a Enrique Nalda. Trayectoria y Legado a la Arqueología Mexicana



 Ojalá puedan asistir a este homenaje bien merecido para Enrique Nalda.
Saludos

El Mayista


 Homenaje a Enrique Nalda. 
Trayectoria y Legado a la Arqueología Mexicana
 
Programa
Jueves 14 de Abril    


10:00 hrs. Palabras del Lic. Alfonso de Maria y Campos. Director Gral. del INAH

10:15 hrs. “Enrique Nalda, funcionario del INAH”. Lic. María Teresa Franco y G.S.

Proyección del documental Los rostros ocultos de Dzibanché

10:50 hrs. “Enrique Nalda y la fundación de Arqueología Mexicana” Lic. Ma. Nieves Noriega (ARQUEOMEX)

11:30 hrs. “Enrique Nalda y el DIAENAH”. Arql. Enrique Vela (ARQUEOMEX)

12:00 Receso

12:30 hrs. “Enrique Nalda y la arqueología de superficie”. Arql. Javier López Camacho (ENAH)

13:00 hrs. “Enrique Nalda, mayista” Adriana Velázquez (CINAH Quintana Roo)

13:30 hrs. Palabras de la Arql. Rebeca Panameño
          Comida

17.00 hrs. “Enrique Nalda, su paso por la ENAH”. Dr. Manuel Gándara Vázquez (ENAH)

17:40 hrs. “Enrique Nalda, alumno y amigo”. Mtra. Noemí Castillo Tejero (DEA)

18:10 hrs. “Enrique Nalda y Yaxchilán”. Arql. Daniel Juárez (DEA)

19:30 hrs. “Enrique Nalda y la epigrafía del sur de Quintana Roo”. Dr. Erik Velásquez (UNAM)

Clausura a cargo del Dr. Alejandro Villalobos, Director de la ENAH


martes, 5 de abril de 2011

Introducción a la Escritura Jeroglífica Maya, 2011 Escenarios míticos, históricos y futuristas de los antiguos mayas



A todos los interesados en la lectura de escritura jeroglífica Maya, se les invita a este curso básico  introductorio.

Saludos
El Mayista

 

domingo, 3 de abril de 2011

Conferencia: Ciudades perdidas, tumbas, tesoros y la ética por Dr. Arthur Demarest


 A los seguidores de la cultura Maya se les invita a la conferencia "Ciudades perdidas, tumbas, tesoros y la ética" se llevará a cabo en el Aula Magna del Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas en la UNAM ciudad de México, por el Dr. Arthur Demarest el siguiente 15 de abril de 12 a 14 horas.

Arthur Demarest ha realizado investigaciones en varios sitios arqueológicos: Santa Leticia (El Salvador), El Mesak (Retalhuleu), El Mirador, Dos Pilas y otros en Petexbatún (Petén). Entre sus estudios más conocidos se encuentran los del colapso de la antigua civilización Maya. Demarest es director de estudios de antropología en Vanderbilt University, y cuenta con doctorado por Harvard University. 

 Espero tengan la oportunidad de asistir.

Saludos.

El Mayista.