The excavation of ancient tombs has always captured the imagination of intrepid explorers, professional archaeologists and an interested public alike. In the Maya area, two factors have dovetailed to create an ongoing focus on burial contexts in archaeological fieldwork. First, Classic-period Maya interments are common in both ritual and residential structures, making it virtually impossible to excavate a building without encountering a burial; and second, the Maya have a rich artistic tradition, and as a result, many burials – particularly of the ancient elite – contain elaborate funerary objects. A tomb, however, is a complex interweaving of multiple categories of information: from the typically-showcased artifacts, to human and animal skeletal material, to fine-grained data such as pigments and minerals that tend to be understudied or overlooked relative to other tomb contents. Consequently, multiple scales of mortuary data are vital when coming to conclusions about burial practices among the ancient Maya. In this informal seminar we will focus on several royal and noble tombs from El Perú-Waka’ to explore what the full range of components of a mortuary assemblage can tell us about the interred individual(s), as well as the people who conducted associated burial rituals, and how ancient re-entry activities may affect archaeological interpretations.

The Association for Latin American Art will sponsor a session for Emerging Scholars at the CAA meeting in Chicago. This year's co-chairs will be Dr. Patricia Sarro and Dr. Khristaan Villela.

This is an open session for advanced graduate students and recent Ph.D. recipients on any Pre-Columbian, Colonial, Modern, or Contemporary Latin-American topic.

Proposals must include the following items:?
1. Completed session participation proposal form
2. Preliminary abstract of one to two double-spaced, typed? pages 3. Letter mentioning speaker's interest, expertise and CAA membership status 4. CV with home and office mailing addresses, e-mail address,? phone and fax numbers. Include summer address and? telephone number, if applicable. 5. a stamped, self-addressed postcard to be returned by session chairs

Paper proposals DUE MAY 8TH.

Please submit duplicate proposals to both panel chairs in accordance with the guidelines indicated in the CAA call for participation.
Online at: http://conference.collegeart.org/2010
And
http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/2010CallforParticipation.pdf

Please send proposals to:

Dr. Patricia Sarro
Department of Art
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, OH 44555-3627
pjsarro@ysu.edu

Dr. Khristaan Villela
PO Box 23872
Santa Fe, NM 87502
kvillela@yahoo.com

Co-chairs will accept electronic submissions, but cannot send return postcards to applicant acknowledging receipt of proposal. It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that electronic documents are in a workable format, such as .pdf. Session chairs reserve the right to refuse electronic applications sent in unreadable formats.

CALL FOR PAPERS

2010 Cleveland Symposium – Submission deadline: December 11, 2009

The 2010 Cleveland Symposium invites graduate submissions exploring cross-cultural influences throughout the history of art. The exchange of ideas across local, regional, national, and continental borders has been one of the major vehicles by which art changes over time. We are seeking papers using all methodologies that explore these convergences. Examples include cases of artists influenced by other artists, places, time, culture, history, and any other relationships that are ultimately expressed in visual and material culture. We welcome submissions from graduate students in all stages of their studies and from all fields of art history including Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern, Contemporary and Non-Western. A monetary prize will be awarded to the speaker who presents the most innovative research in the most successfully delivered paper.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with a curriculum vitae, to clevelandsymposium@gmail.com by December 11, 2009.

Selected presenters will be notified by January 1, 2010.

The ancient lowland Maya civilization of Mexico and Central America is often celebrated for its achievements in an environment unique for its lack of rivers, unlike that of the ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Indus, and Chinese civilizations. Nevertheless many major lowland Maya cities were indeed located along important rivers such as the Usumacinta, Pasión, Belize, Motagua, among others. These "River Cities" provided the rest of the Maya lowlands access to the resource-rich highlands to the south, as well as contact with to both the Caribbean and Gulf coasts. Moreover, they facilitated the movement of peoples throughout the region, allowed for critical movement and trading of exotic goods, and gave rise to innovative artistic and architectural styles. For these reasons, this conference will focus on how and why the great river cities of the ancient lowland Maya represent some of the most intriguing, opulent, and important segments of this civilization. The Middle American Research Institute [MARI] is organizing this year’s Seventh Annual Maya Symposium & Workshop with the collaboration of the Stone Center for Latin American Studies.

CALL FOR PAPERS

SECOLAS 2010 Conference – Submission deadline: January 1, 2010

Sponsored by: Instituto Mora, Mexico City
Local arrangement: Carmen Collado

Proposals for paper presentations should be one page that includes author(s) name(s), affiliation(s), contact information, paper title and an abstract (200-300 words). Session proposals should come from
the organizer and include all names and affiliations of the session participants, contact information for each participant and especially the session chair, title of the proposed session, and individual presentation titles as well as a brief explanation of the purpose of the session by the organizer. Abstracts for each presentation in the session may also be included.

Deadline: January 1, 2010
Email submissions are preferred.
Send proposals to:

Literature & Humanities:
Ann Gonzalez, Ph.D., Associate Chair
Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies
Department of Languages and Culture Studies
University of North Carolina Charlotte
(704) 687-8781
abgonzal@uncc.edu

History & Social Sciences:
Timothy Henderson
Distinguished Research Professor
Department of History
Auburn University Montgomery
(334) 264-6826
tjhenderson@charter.net

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.

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.

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.

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.