Thousands of Mayan culture objects whole have spent decades in the basement of the Ethnological Museum in Hamburg, several meters below the spacious rooms housing testimonies of the five continents. But starting tomorrow the public can enter the world of the pre-Columbian people through the heart of the Maya, one of the most comprehensive collections of today.
"The first pieces of Mayan art from Hamburg arrived in Guatemala in 1878, years before the founding of this museum," said Bernd Schmelz. "Already in 1828, many teachers and German merchants settled in Guatemala," says scientific director of the institution.
This contact was intensified by Franz Termer cultural level. During a research trip between 1925 and 1929, who later became the second director of the Hamburg museum began collecting not only archaeological items but also art objects and items that were part of the daily life of one of the villages fascinating humanity.

Selections from the Ancient Americas Collection features more than 180 works made prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Europeans during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Representing a time period of more than 3,000 years, the exhibition is drawn from the OMA’s comprehensive Art of the Ancient Americas Collection and gives a rare glimpse into the life and culture of numerous civilizations from the North, Central and South American regions. Significant ancient works of gold, silver, jade, ceramic, shell and wood are included from the cultures of the Aztec, Maya, Moche, Nasca, Inca and Zapotec.

An exhibition of 135 artworks from cultures that rose and fell in Mexico, Central America and Andean South America from 1200 B.C.–A.D. 1530. Drawn from the collection of John Bourne recently gifted to the Walters, this exhibition, on view February 12–May 20, 2012, expresses each culture’s distinctive aesthetics, worldview and spiritual ideologies. This exhibition features selections from collector John Bourne, who was among the initial explorers to probe deep into the hilly jungles of southern Mexico. Traveling with adventurer Carlos (Herman Charles) Frey and photographer Giles Healy, they were among the first Westerners to visit Bonampak, the now famous Maya site celebrated for its three-roomed royal building whose interior walls are covered with murals recording a battle and public rituals concerning royal political history at the site during the eighth century. Bourne became enamored of the creative expressiveness of the Maya—and of all peoples of the ancient Americas—perceiving the works as equal to any artistic tradition in the world.

Children of the Plumed Serpent illuminates the social and cultural complexities of late pre-Columbian and early colonial eras as expressed in the art of the period and examines the enduring nature of these complexities in contemporary Mesoamerican societies. Recent scholarship demonstrates that a confederacy of city-states in southern Mexico, largely dominated by Nahua, Mixtec, and Zapotec nobility, successfully resisted both Aztec and Spanish subjugation. Calling themselves the "Children of the Plumed Serpent," because of their belief that Quetzalcoatl, the human incarnation of the Plumed Serpent, had founded their royal lineages, this ruling class of nobles, called caciques, resurrected themselves and continued to affect cultural development in Mesoamerica during a dramatic period of social transformation.

The exhibition will explore the extraordinary wonders in fresco, codices, polychrome ceramics, gold, turquoise, shell, textiles, featherwork and other precious materials that were produced by these confederacies between AD 1200 and 1500, whose influence spread throughout Mesoamerica by means of vast networks of trade and exchange.

MAYA 2012 leads visitors on a journey through the Maya’s time-ordered universe, expressed through their intricate calendar systems, and the power weilded by their divine kings, the astounding “lords of time.” Visitors explore the Maya world through interactive experiences and walk among sculptures and full-sized replicas of major monuments.
The exhibition features over 100 remarkable objects including artifacts recently excavated by Penn Museum archaeologists from the site of Copan, Honduras.
Visitors follow the rise and fall of Copan, moving across the centuries to discover how Maya ideas about time and the calendar have changed up to the present day. Contemporary Maya speak to their own heritage and concerns for the future. MAYA 2012 uncovers a history and culture far richer and surprising than commonly supposed.

Izapa is a large Formative site located in the far SE corner of the State of Chiapas, Mexico, immediately adjacent to the Guatemalan border. Izapa, which David Stuart calls "an enigma", was once a thriving cultural and commercial center, and the birthplace of early Mesoamerican calendar development. Norman has studied and worked at Izapa for 40 years. He has a lifetime of research to share – and a new book titled Izapa Sacred Space – Where Time Began.

3-Session Evening Course

Speculation about what ancient Maya sources tell us about 2012 is becoming a global phenomenon in popular culture as the great 5,125-year Maya “Long Count” cycle reaches completion on December 21. How did the ancestral ancient Mesoamerican peoples understand the world in terms of their astronomy, conceptions of space and time, calendrical divination, and prophecy? Is it coincidence that the sun will pass through the plane of the Milky Way near the galactic center around December 21? Did the Maya intentionally create this coincidence?
This series provides an in-depth examination and interpretation of the texts and images left by the Maya, and also considers the Aztec calendar stone and its meaning.
JUN 14 Time and the Ancient Maya: Calendar and Cosmovision Knowledge of the Maya “Long Count”, which began in 3,114 B.C., was lost to Maya descendents, then rediscovered by scholarly detective work beginning in the 19th century.JUN 21 The Aztec Calendar Stone and the Legend of the Five Suns The Aztec world of the “Fifth Sun” is prophesied to end in a great earthquake. Does Aztec cosmology relate to the Maya’s far older calendar?
JUN 28 The Maya "Apocalypse" of 2012: Cataclysm, New Age Transformation, or Something Else?
What would the ancient Maya have anticipated for the completion of their "Long Count" on Dec. 21, 2012?

Convener: Arnauld Charlotte CNRS-Université de Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne Nanterre France / Frankreich
Co-Convener: Eeckhout, Peter (Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium / Belgien)

Until recently, archaeology and ethnohistory have given emphasis on episodes of so-called collapses in the cultural sequences of prehispanic societies during the last two millenia on the American continent. Research in progress in Amazonia, the Andes, Mesoamerica, also the Arctic, opens new perspectives on what should be better approached as "rapid change" and the development of resilient strategies. In a few case studies, reappraisal of field data and ethnohistorical documents leads to construct chronological sequences articulating environmental events with socio-political processes, as well as the corresponding emic histories recorded by local authorities. One central issue focuses upon the intentional role of elites at distinct spatial and social scales in the reorganization of entities, and the long-term "costs" of their politics.

CALL FOR PAPERS

With the aim to promote an exchange and a sharing of insights, questions, methods, and viewpoints in order to foster dynamic dialogues, we have chosen as our general theme BUILDING DIALOGUES IN THE AMERICAS. We wish to promote self-reflection and encourage trans-disciplinary dialogues. We invite proposals for papers that seek to draw conjunctions between disciplines, subfields, theories and methods.

Link to Guidelines and forms

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and sponsored by The Community College Humanities Association (CCHA), this five-week Institute, held on-site in locations in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, will enable twenty-four faculty participants to explore the rapidly accumulating new collaborative scholarship by investigators in both Mesoamerican studies and Southwestern studies Institute seminars, discussions and on-site field study with renowned visiting specialist scholars in Mexico and in the Southwest together provide a compelling format for the selected Institute Summer Fellows directly to engage with the “new history for an ancient land.” Site visits enable Fellows to evaluate for themselves at first hand the similarities and differences between such Mesoamerican sites as Teotihuacan and the Aztec Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, and Southwestern sites such as Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde and Aztec Ruins -- in terms of commonalities and differences in architecture, site design, iconography, and hypothesized worldviews and religious and ceremonial systems.

Stipend: Participants receive all lodging, internal travel and site-visit costs for all scheduled activities during the Institute as specified in the detailed Daily Schedule, along with a few pre-arranged meals. Participants are responsible for all other meal expenses; for personal expenses; and for their own individual travel arrangements to arrive in Mexico City by Sunday, June 17, 2012 and for return from Santa Fe anytime after July 23, 2012.

Simon Martin, Research Specialist in Maya epigraphy, Penn Museum Come and experience a behind-the scenes look at how the Penn Museum exhibition about the Maya and 2012 evolved and took shape. The talk will focus on the challenges and opportunities that this theme presents for all those interested in the Pre-Columbian past, and how a range of different professional specialists combined to present the public with a dynamic, but accurate, view of the Maya and their ideas about time, both past and present.

Dancing into Dreams: Maya Vases of the Ik’ Kingdom will offer an intimate glimpse at the exceptionally painted chocolate-drinking cups of a single Maya center located in modern-day Guatemala. Ik’ vases are acknowledged particularly for their naturalistic color, veristic portraiture, skillful rendition of graceful movement, and elegantly fluid, calligraphic line. Several Ik’ vases were also signed by their painters—a convention attested in the ancient Americas only among the Maya of this region. Complementing our important holdings of Ik’ vessels with loans of select masterpieces from other museum collections, the exhibition will both elucidate the courtly politics and dynastic history of the Ik’ kingdom and reveal the vital role of master artists in these intrigues.

Dancing into Dreams: Maya Vases of the Ik’ Kingdom will offer an intimate glimpse at the exceptionally painted chocolate-drinking cups of a single Maya center located in modern-day Guatemala. Ik’ vases are acknowledged particularly for their naturalistic color, veristic portraiture, skillful rendition of graceful movement, and elegantly fluid, calligraphic line. Several Ik’ vases were also signed by their painters—a convention attested in the ancient Americas only among the Maya of this region. Complementing our important holdings of Ik’ vessels with loans of select masterpieces from other museum collections, the exhibition will both elucidate the courtly politics and dynastic history of the Ik’ kingdom and reveal the vital role of master artists in these intrigues.

Way off the beaten tourist path, the celebrated Maya cities of Mexico’s Chiapas state have, until recently, been mostly inaccessible and certainly rarely-visited. Join Dr. Michael Coe to explore some of the most thought-provoking sites in the Maya World. Begin with the stunning monuments of Palenque and Yaxchilán, and the finely painted frescoes of Bonampak. View Toniná, where a skeletal death god is depicted carrying the decapitated head of a lord of Palenque. Travel to Tenam Puente, still partly hidden in the rainforest foliage. View Chiapa de Corzo where what may be the oldest known tomb in Mesoamerica, filled with rich grave goods, has been recently discovered. And explore Izapa, one of the largest of the Preclassic centers, with its huge array of incised monuments. Spend two days in San Cristobal de las Casas where nearby villages and hills are home to 200,000 native people, most of them Tzotzils or Tzeltals who still speak Mayan languages linked to the tongues spoken 4,000 years ago. Even today, the hand-woven embroidered costumes and unique religious ceremonies of these indigenous peoples remind us that their cultures are still very much alive. This trip was designed specifically for the legendary Dr. Coe and will be the last time he leads a group into the Maya World. Don’t miss this experience!

The conference is initiated by workshops (December 9th-12th), followed by a day off between the workshops and the symposium (December 13th, with extracurricular activities including a visit to the Maya III: Life, Death, Time exhibition at the Didrichsen Art Museum in Helsinki), and finally a two-day long symposium on the 14th and 15th of December.

In 1843, after his expedition into Central America that intro- duced North America to the Yucatán Peninsula’s Precolumbian Maya, explorer John Lloyd Stephens boasted that Yucatán had “numerous and extensive cities, desolate and in ruins, which induced us to believe that the country presented a greater field for antiquarian research and discoveries that any we had yet vis- ited.” Keeping Stephens’s claims in mind, this panel seeks papers that examine the peninsula’s visual culture across the Precolum- bian, colonial, modern, and contemporary periods. By bringing together critically driven scholarship, we aspire to initiate a dia- logue that considers what exactly is Yucatecan about Yucatán. Potential avenues for inquiry include: Why has the peninsula remained so understudied in the art-historical discourse? How do we analyze its art and architecture as a conceptual practice that transcends regional, national, and international barriers? Ultimately, this panel addresses the formation of Yucatán’s unique visual cultural identity.

Proposals (including proposal form, preliminary abstract, letter of interest, and CV) must be sent to session chairs by May 4, 2012. Please see CAA’s 2013 Call for Participation for more information http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/2013CallforParticipation.pdf.

The Fabergé Museum opened a special exhibition of his collection of gold objects from Central and South America pre-Columbian times. We provide the unique gold objects from different American cultures of the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs from the period of 400 years before Christ until the time of the conquest of America by the Conquest in 1500. Besides 45 gold artefacts, we present 44 objects from semiprecious stones - jade and nephrite.

Step into the windswept world of Ice-Age mammoth hunters. Walk through a replica of an 800-year-old pueblo dwelling and imagine your entire family cooking, eating, and sleeping in one small room. Explore the Aztec empire and its island capital, Tenochtitlan, a city of more than 200,000 people and an extraordinary feat of engineering for any era. Discover what Field Museum scientists and others have learned about the Americans who lived here before us, and how it's changing nearly everything we thought we knew!

The Field Museum's ground-breaking new exhibition, The Ancient Americas, takes you on a journey through 13,000 years of human ingenuity and achievement in the western hemisphere, where hundreds of diverse societies thrived long before the arrival of Europeans. In this 19,000-square-foot permanent exhibition you'll live the epic story of the peopling of these continents, from the Arctic to the tip of South America. Discover how and why the early Americans developed farming, created new forms of artistic expression, and forged mighty empires. See more than 2,200 artifacts, amazing reconstructions, and dozens of videos and interactive displays, and come to understand the ingenuity with which ancient peoples met the challenges of their times and places as we meet ours today.

Located in Golden Gate Park, the de Young is San Francisco's oldest museum. On October 15, 2005, the de Young Museum re-opened in a state-of-the-art new facility that integrates art, architecture and the natural landscape in one multi-faceted destination that will inspire audiences from around the world.

A walk through the de Young's collection of over 2,500 objects from Mesoamerica, Central and South America, as well as the West Coast of North America reveals the richness and complexity of art that links the Americas. Notable treasures include the largest group of Teotihuacán wall murals outside of México, a rare Lowland Maya stela dating from the 8th century A.D., a Peruvian mouth mask of hammered gold from the Nazca culture, and a ten-foot totem pole from Alaska.

This exhibit draws on the William P. Palmer III Collection, a collection of 2,228 Precolumbian ceramics, lithics, and gold work dating from 2,000 B.C. to the time of the Spanish Conquest and is one of the finest collections of its type in the nation. The exhibit includes many Maya pieces, including a stela, glyph panel, cylindrical vases, figurines, shell, bone and antler carvings, and jade pieces. It explores cultures of México and Central America ranging from Olmec to Aztec.

The Hudson Museum also features the following Online Exhibits:

"Worldviews: Maya Ceramics from the Palmer Collection" - explores the wealth of information about religion and beliefs important to the Maya and captured by artisans. Some of the internationally known pieces in this exhibit were published in The Maya Vase Book, vol. 5, by Justin and Barbara Kerr, and Hidden Faces of the Maya, by Linda Schele.

"Images for Eternity: West Mexican Tomb Figures" - discusses the progress being made by modern scholars in understanding West Mexican tomb figures that have lost their original context.

During the first years of colonial Mexico an influx of creativity persisted. The dying Aztec civilization based on the idea to preserve history, to legitimize their noble origins and to try to conserve their space in society made several manuscripts explaining their ancestry. The Spanish priests encouraged this kind of artistic expression in an effort to understand their religious opponents and bring them into the True Faith.

The Codex Siguenza, preserved in the vault of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, combines the indigenous tradition of glyphs with the Latin characters learned from the Spanish priests. With his native creativity already mixed with the learning of the European artistic expression the tlacuilo, the scribe, writes-paints a trail following the path his ancestors walked, making the legend come alive.

The Library of Congress presents The Cultures and History of the Americas, an online exhibition featuring fifty highlights from the more than 4,000 rare books, maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts that make up the Jay I. Kislak Collection.

This exhibition explores several themes, including the pre-Columbian cultures of Central America and the Caribbean as revealed in sculpture, architecture, and language; encounters between Europeans and the indigenous peoples; the growth of European Florida; and piracy and trade in the American Atlantic.

This exhibition is a preview of the permanent Kislak space to open in the Northeast Galleries of the Thomas Jefferson Building in 2006.

A rich array of objects from the major civilizations of ancient Mexico constitute the heart of the collection. Recently reinstalled in bold new galleries designed by the contemporary artist Jorge Pardo, the collection features ceramic funerary offerings from the West Mexican states of Nayarit, Colima, and Jalisco, exquisite jade figures produced by Olmec artists on the Gulf Coast, and textiles and ceramics from the ancient kingdoms of Peru.

The museum's holdings include a comprehensive collection of Pre-Columbian objects representing nearly every culture of Pre-columbian Latin America, with the best representations from West Mexico and the Maya region. The museum also possesses a cohesive collection of Guatemalan costumes and an extensive collection of Mexican masks.

Ongoing Exhibits include:

"Gods, Kings and Artisans of Ancient Mesoamerica"
"Ceramics of Ancient West Mexico"
"Painted Vessels of the Maya Elite"
"Power and Guidance - Early Classic Figurines of Mesoamerica"

Upcoming Online Exhibition:

"Ancient Mexican Art" - This upcoming online exhibition will feature pieces selected form the Barrick Museum's collection to illustrate the cultural and historical continuity of Mexican art. The pieces all date to before the Spanish Conquest of the 1500's. The materials, techniques, and designs used in ancient Mexico continue to enrich the folk art of today.

Friday, March 5th
Classic Maya hieroglyphic texts are mostly concerned with history, but they are not just lists of historical events. Rather, they are carefully crafted narratives that relate the events in a literary fashion. The characteristics of the literary style are only now becoming clear as the texts are becoming easier to read in their entirety. This talk will outline the nature of Classic narratives and point out rhetorical devices that occur repeatedly in the texts. A surprising aspect of Maya literature is that these same devices are used today by skilled storytellers, a striking example of continuity of tradition through centuries of radical change in the societies. This lecture will provide a general introduction to the weekend workshop.

Saturday and Sunday; Giddens Learning Center 100E, Hamline University
This workshop will focus on regional variants in Classic Maya literature by studying narrative hieroglyphic texts from Palenque and Yaxchilán. The workshop will begin with an overview of glyphic structures, using images representing both sounds and ideas. Then, Nick will lead us through a hands-on reading of several texts from Palenque and Yaxchilán. Colored pencils and handouts will be provided! The workshop will no doubt include a refresher lesson on Maya numbers and calendrics, and we may even have some singing and dancing as we complete the reading of the featured texts.

The collection of art of the ancient Americas is substantial, consisting of more than 1,900 pieces. The Museum is fortunate in the breadth and depth of the collection as a whole. All three principal cultural centers of the Americas are represented: Mesoamerica, Central America, and the Andes. Most of the important art-producing cultures - from the West México to the Maya and Aztec, from Honduras to Panama, from the Chavín to the Inca - can be appreciated during a visit to the permanent collection galleries.

Ancient America refers to regions in Mexico, Central America and South America at a time prior to the arrival of Europeans. The diverse artistic traditions of the prehistoric people can be traced as far back as 4,000 years. The museum collection includes many examples of pottery and stonework as well as elaborate, hand-woven textiles and costumes. Large burial urns, figurines and jewelry provide a unique insight into these advanced cultures.

The permanent exhibit includes representative objects from all the archaeological regions and time periods in Pre-Columbian Guatemala. The exhibition is organized in chronological sequence, from the earliest traces of human presence in the modern territory of Guatemala, until the Spanish conquest. Three major geographic regions may be distinguished in the study of the ancient peoples of Guatemala: The Pacific Coast, The Highlands, and The Lowlands.

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century in both the Old World and the New, chocolate remained an elite drink, too expensive for ordinary folk to enjoy, and often forbidden to them. But the invention by a Dutchman of a method to extract the fat in cacao paste led to the mutation of chocolate from drink into a solid confection that could be enjoyed by the masses. Chocolate now became "big business" and the cultivation of the cacao tree was spread all across the globe.

The present exhibit: "Kakaw: Chocolate in Guatemalan Culture" brings together many lovely objects that celebrate the mysteries and rituals that surrounded the chocolate drink among the early Maya, as well as the vessels that were made in colonial times so that a new, Creole elite could indulge their new-found taste for this prestigious beverage.

Organized by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the exhibition offers a panorama of Olmeca civilization, starting from invaluable pieces found in different archaeological sites in the Gulf of Mexico area, where the civilization addressed as "mother culture" of Mesoamerica flourished 4,000 years ago.
Archaeologist Erika Gomez, exhibition project coordinator at INAH, commented that the show is divided in 4 parts: The first one is about the splendor of the Olmecas (1800-400 BC); the second part is related to sculptures that represent hierarchy and power; the third one refers to regions influenced by the Olmecas and the last one, to the legacy of this culture.
Curated by the recently departed Virginia Mary Fields, who was a specialist in Ancient American Art at LACMA, this great exhibition is composed by pieces from museums that are part of the INAH network as well as independent museums such as Xalapa Anthropology Museum and Museo Amparo of Puebla.

The NMSU Museum is now home to a unique and comprehensive collection of both prehistoric and historical pottery. This permanent exhibit includes almost 600 pottery vessels that reflect the vibrant artistry and beauty of Southwestern and Mesoamerican ceramics. There is also an extensive type collection of sherds from New Mexico and Chihuahua to be explored, as well as other educational materials. The NMSU Museum proudly invites you to view this important and historic cultural collection.

This exhibition features more than 150 works, including 25 pieces that have never been exhibited before, made prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Europeans during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Representing a time period of more than 3,000 years, the exhibition drawn from the OMA?s Art of the Ancient Americas Collection gives a rare glimpse into the life and culture of numerous civilizations from the North, Central and South American regions including the Aztec, Maya, Moche, Nasca, Inca and Zapotec with significant ancient works of gold, silver, jade, ceramic, shell and wood.

Presented by The Mesoamerican Society and The Society for Maya Hieroglyphs

The Settlement Pattern of Commoners in Cahal Pech, Belize: A Comparative Analysis of Settlement Patters in the Belize River Valley
Hun Tun: Investigations at a Late Classic Settlement in Nothern Belize
Contact Period Mesoamerican Trading Patterns with Europeans: Material Remains Recovered in Underwater Contexts
The Fat of the Land: Anthropomorphic Representations of Earth in Mesoamerican Ideology
Zapotec Genealogical Registers from Oaxaca, Mexico: An Alternative Interpretation of the "Jaws of the Sky" Icon
Taíno Cave Use: Connecting the Mesoamerican Concept of Ritual Cave Use to the Caribbean

Dig It! Explore Archaeology is a hands-on exhibit that will delight visitors of all ages. Featured is a life-size replica of an excavated trench wall where hands-on elements demonstrate the science of archaeology. A photo-mural illustrates various aspects of archaeological field work. In other hands-on elements, you'll explore how archaeologists study clues from ancient and historic sites. Learn how these clues are used in identifying artifacts, such as ancient pottery, and create your own designs using interactive magnetic drawing slates. Build your own miniature Hohokam village or take a break and enjoy the museum's orientation video in the newly rennovated theater. Both children and adults will find this gallery entertaining, engaging, and educational... in fact, they'll "DIG IT!"

The flora and fauna of the forest, the rhythm of burning and planting, and the cycles of birth and death shaped the myth, ritual, and pageantry that are celebrated in art and architecture of these ancient and contemporary peoples. This exhibit features exact copies of Classic Maya monuments-four towering stelae and two massive zoomorphs-from the ancient city of Quiriguá, Guatemala, covered with hieroglyphs that recount the stories of Maya rulers and gods. The exhibit backdrop is a colorful mural resplendent with the animals and birds of the jungle surrounding the Ceiba tree, the symbolic tree of life that links the heavens, earth, and underworld. Exhibit cases contain fine examples of Maya pottery and figurines, as well as information on how the giant monuments were carved more than 1200 years ago.

Explore objects from various areas of the Art Institute of Chicago's permanent collection to enrich visitors' understanding of their content, style, and historical context. The collection includes sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, and textiles created by Native Americans, the inhabitants of Teotihuacan, and the Olmec, Maya, and Aztecs of ancient Mesoamerica - the geographical area comprising New Mexico, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador. Includes lesson plans for the classroom, maps, glossary, books, and art projects for the home.

Pre-Columbian art from Mexico, Central and South America has been at the heart of the Bowers for many years. A series of galleries communicates the power and sophistication of the mysterious cultures that rose and fell in ancient America.

The Bowers Museum also offers the following Educational Activities for Schools (grades 3 & 4):

Pre-Columbian Art Tour
(History/Social Science content standards and Visual Arts Framework)
The series of five intimate galleries portray the rich art and culture of ancient Pre-Columbian civilizations. The exhibit details the emergence of Mesoamerican cities highlighting architecture, ritual art, the sacred ball game, funerary art, and hieroglyphic writing depicted in Mayan art. Various artifacts include the ceramics and stone carvings of the pre-Columbian Maya and Olmec peoples illustrating their sacred rituals.

Ancient Mesoamerican Art Classes
(Visual Arts Framework)
Clay Masks, Jaguar Masks, Tooled Foil Mythical Beasts, Clay Animals

In 2002, The Dayton Art Institute was fortunate enough to be able to showcase the stunning pre-Columbian collection of the late Harold W. Shaw, on loan from Mrs. Mary Louise Shaw. Thanks to Mrs. Shaw's generosity, we are once again able to share these treasures with our members and visitors. The Shaw collection features gold, silver, jade, stone and ceramic works from ancient Meso-America and South America. Assembled during the 1960s and 1970s, this stunning collection is a testimony to the gifted eye of Harold Shaw.

The Fabergé Museum opened a special exhibition of his collection of gold objects from Central and South America pre-Columbian times.
We provide the unique gold objects from different American cultures of the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs from the period of 400 years before Christ until the time of the conquest of America by the Conquest in 1500.
Besides 45 gold artefacts, we present 44 objects from semiprecious stones - jade and nephrite.

Journey through history to get the complete story behind the tasty treat that we crave in Chocolate, an exciting new exhibition developed by The Field Museum.

You'll begin in the rainforest with the unique cacao tree whose seeds started it all. Visit the ancient Maya civilization of Central America and discover what chocolate meant nearly 1,500 years ago. Then travel forward in time and northward to the Aztec civilization of 16th-century Mexico, where cacao seeds were so valuable they were used as money. Discover chocolate's introduction into the upper classes of European society and its transformation into a mass-produced world commodity.

In addition: Opening in the Winter of 2007:
The Halls of the Ancient Americas - It tells the epic story of human life on the American continents, from the arrival of small groups of hunter- gatherers, whose way of life survived into the 20th century, to the great but fragile empires of the Aztecs and the Incas - empires that stretched thousands of miles, encompassed as many as 10 million people, and came to sudden, brutal ends. Click here for additional information.

Inaugural exhibit of the renovated Middle American Research Institute that celebrates the development of the Maya civilization from its beginngings in 1000 BC to the present.
Displaying objects from MARI's collection that have never been seen before, this exhibit attempts to dispel erroneous notions of the Maya civilization that have recently gained currency due to the "2012 frenzy."

The objects in this gallery are from "Mesoamerica," the area encompassing most of southern Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. In parts of this culture area farming villages grew into towns and cities, tribal chiefs were made kings and emperors, trade networks became more complex, stone monuments and pyramids were erected, a calendar and writing-system developed, and devotion to nature spirits developed into state ceremonies in honor of the gods and ancestors.

This site explores Aztec and Mayan law through images and brief overviews of topics such as warfare, tribute, Aztec courts, attorneys and judges, property law, family law, punishment, drunkenness, slavery and Maya Law. Includes a small collection of annotated links on Aztec, Mayan, and other Mesoamerican civilizations.

Hundreds of earthenware pots and other Precolumbian artifacts from ancient West Mexico are now part of the collections of Wake Forest University's Museum of Anthropology.

The objects, most dating from 300 B.C. to 400 A.D., were donated to the museum in May. The collection of 1,040 pieces includes 162 complete ceramic vessels, ceramic figurines, greenstone beads and necklaces, obsidian spear and arrow points, knives, and grinding stones.

The artworks for this exhibition, loaned by the directors of the Austen-Stokes Ancient Americas Foundation, are highlights of the foundation's collection and include more than 120 objects. Many of the objects have never been shown before and rank among the most beautiful and striking pieces created by these cultures. In the sculptures, vessels, and jewelry, the artists and craftsmen encoded a wide range of religious beliefs in representations of humans, animals, and supernatural beings. From gem-like objects of stone and gold to paintings and ceramic figures, the intricate compositions, remarkable naturalism, and sometimes powerful abstraction indicates how much remains to be learned about these ancient cultures.

All of the major civilizations of Mesoamerica are featured, including Olmec, Maya, and Teotihuacan, among others. The exhibition focuses on small ceramic sculpture from these cultures--enigmatic figures and animals that probably served a ritual function. These pieces are complemented by larger ceramic sculptures from West Mexico, intricate gold objects from Colombia, elegant ceramics from Ecuador, and works from the Caribbean and Alaska.

Among the collection are outstanding Jaina terra-cotta figurines from the Maya period, striking figures and house models from western México. Particularly important and rare is the clay model of a ball game, which is complemented by a yoke, hachas, and additional items related to this ancient sporting activity. South American cultures are represented by a small number of vessels, sculptures, and other objects, including textiles. The exhibit also includes a painted Maya vase and the largest carved Maya femur known, along with a notable selection of Olmec and Maya pieces.