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"Stele (Archaeology)"
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The Comitán Valley
A thousand years ago, the Comitán Valley, in the Mexican state
of Chiapas, was the western edge of the Maya world. Far from the
famous power centers of the Classic period, the valley has been
neglected even by specialists. Here, Caitlin C. Earley offers the
first comprehensive study of sculpture excavated from the area,
showcasing the sophistication and cultural vigor of a region that
has largely been ignored.
Supported by the rulers of the valley's cities, local artists
created inventive works that served to construct civic identities.
In their depictions of warrior kings, ballgames, rituals, and
ancestors, the artists of Comitán made choices that reflected
political and religious goals and distinguished the artistic
production of the Comitán Valley from that of other Maya locales.
After the Maya abandoned their powerful lowland centers, those in
Comitán were maintained, a distinction from which Earley draws new
insights concerning the Maya collapse. Richly illustrated with
never-before-published photographs of sculptures unearthed from key
archaeological sites, The Comitán Valley is an
illuminating work of art historical recovery and
interpretation.
eBook
Lightning warrior : Maya art and kingship at Quirigua
The ancient Maya city of Quirigua occupied a crossroads between Copan in the southeastern Maya highlands and the major centers of the Peten heartland. Though always a relatively small city, Quirigua stands out because of its public monuments, which were some of the greatest achievements of Classic Maya civilization. Impressive not only for their colossal size, high sculptural quality, and eloquent hieroglyphic texts, the sculptures of Quirigua are also one of the few complete, in situ series of Maya monuments anywhere, which makes them a crucial source of information about ancient Maya spirituality and political practice within a specific historical context. Using epigraphic, iconographic, and stylistic analyses, this study explores the integrated political-religious meanings of Quirigua’s monumental sculptures during the eighth-century A.D. reign of the city’s most famous ruler, K’ak’ Tiliw. In particular, Matthew Looper focuses on the role of stelae and other sculpture in representing the persona of the ruler not only as a political authority but also as a manifestation of various supernatural entities with whom he was associated through ritual performance. By tracing this sculptural program from its Early Classic beginnings through the reigns of K’ak’ Tiliw and his successors, and also by linking it to practices at Copan, Looper offers important new insights into the politico-religious history of Quirigua and its ties to other Classic Maya centers, the role of kingship in Maya society, and the development of Maya art.
eBook
Genealogy and Status
By shedding light on a long-forgotten epigraphic genre that flourished in North China during the Mongol Empire, or Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Genealogy and Status explores the ways the conquered Chinese people understood and represented the alien Mongol ruling principles through their own cultural tradition. This epigraphic genre, which this book collectively calls \"genealogical steles,\" was quite unique in the history of Chinese epigraphy.Northern Chinese officials commissioned these steles exclusively to record a family's extensive genealogy, rather than the biography or achievements of an individual. Tomoyasu Iiyama shows how the rise of these steles demonstrates that Mongol rule fundamentally affected how northern Chinese families defined, organized, and commemorated their kinship. Because most of these inscriptions are in Classical Chinese, they appear to be part of Chinese tradition. In fact, they reflect a massive social change in Chinese society that occurred because of Mongol rule in China.The evolution of genealogical steles delineates how local elites, while thinking of themselves as the heirs of traditional Chinese culture, fully accommodated to Mongol imperial rule and became instead one of its cornerstones in eastern Eurasia.
eBook
Stone Trees Transplanted? Central Mexican Stelae of the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic and the Question of Maya 'Influence'
Stelae dating to the Epiclassic (650-900 CE) and Early Postclassic (950-1150 CE) from Tula, Xochicalco, and other sites in Central Mexico have been presented in the archaeological and art historical literature of the last four decades—when they have been addressed at all—as evidence of Classic Maya ‘influence’ on Central Mexican art during these periods. This book re-evaluates these claims via detailed comparative analysis of the Central Mexican stelae and their claimed Maya counterparts. For the first time the Central Mexican stelae are placed in the context of often earlier local artistic traditions as well as other possible long-distance connections. Comparison of Tula and Xochicalco stelae with earlier and contemporary stelae from Oaxaca and Guerrero demonstrates connections equally as plausible as those posited with the Maya region, and supported by archaeological evidence. While it is clear that some Central Mexican stelae, especially Stela 4 from Tula, reflect Maya contacts, this has to be balanced by consideration of local and other long distance developments and connections.
eBook
