Andrew D Turner | The Getty (original) (raw)
Books by Andrew D Turner
This book traces the fascinating history of how and why ancient Mesoamerican objects have been co... more This book traces the fascinating history of how and why ancient Mesoamerican objects have been collected. It begins with the pre-Hispanic antiquities that first entered European collections in the sixteenth century as gifts or seizures, continues through the rise of systematic collecting in Europe and the Americas during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and ends in 1940—the start of Europe’s art market collapse at the outbreak of World War II and the coinciding genesis of the large-scale art market for pre-Hispanic antiquities in the United States.
Drawing upon archival resources and international museum collections, the contributors analyze the ways shifting patterns of collecting and taste—including how pre-Hispanic objects changed from being viewed as anthropological and scientific curiosities to collectible artworks—have shaped modern academic disciplines as well as public, private, institutional, and nationalistic attitudes toward Mesoamerican art. As many nations across the world demand the return of their cultural patrimony and ancestral heritage, it is essential to examine the historical processes, events, and actors that initially removed so many objects from their countries of origin.
An in-depth exploration of the history, authentication, and modern relevance of Códice Maya de Mé... more An in-depth exploration of the history, authentication, and modern relevance of Códice Maya de México, the oldest surviving book of the Americas.
Una exploración profunda de la historia, la autenticación y la relevancia moderna del Códice Maya... more Una exploración profunda de la historia, la autenticación y la relevancia moderna del Códice Maya de México, el libro más antiguo del continente americano.
Mathiowetz, Michael D., and Andrew D. Turner, eds. Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Amerind Seminars in Anthropology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2021
The Moche art style is best known through its highly refined ceramic vessels, which frequently ac... more The Moche art style is best known through its highly refined ceramic vessels, which frequently accompanied burials. Estimates suggest that there are over 100,000 Moche vessels in museum and private collections worldwide. The vessels, often decorated in a strongly pictorial style uncharacteristic of art of the Central Andean region, offer modern viewers tantalizing glimpses of Moche worldview. The highly consistent and formalized iconography on Moche vessels has been the topic of numerous studies, beginning around the middle of the last century, which have shed light on important aspects of Moche society such as mythology, social organization and ceremonialism. A particularly confounding subset of Moche ceramics portrays figures, including deities, skeletal beings, humans and animals, engaged in sexual acts. While such vessels inevitably arouse the interest of modern museum visitors, to date, relatively few scholarly studies have investigated the emic meanings of Moche sexual vessels and the artistic intent behind their creation. This study focuses on portrayals of an often-depicted Moche deity who, in this instance, copulates with a woman and argues that such images drew upon widespread beliefs concerning the functions of a vital cosmos and the role of ancestors to make potent ideological claims of legitimacy in a richly metaphorical visual landscape.
Papers by Andrew D Turner
Journal for Art Market Studies, 2023
The role of the international art market in the looting, trafficking, and sale of Latin American ... more The role of the international art market in the looting, trafficking, and sale of Latin American antiquities has shaped the currently accepted canon of pre-Hispanic art to a degree that remains underrecognized. In the case of Classic Veracruz materials, Los Angeles-based Stendahl Art Galleries deftly exploited both a history of illicit excavations and an avant-garde collecting aesthetic to market archaeologically decontextualized objects. Beginning in the late 1930s, the Stendahls and their suppliers brought portable stone Mesoamerican ballgame equipment (yokes, palmas, and hachas) to the fore, which not only perpetuated the looting in Veracruz that robbed scholars and descendant communities of knowledge about the cultures that made them, but also of the opportunity to document, study, and view traditions of monumental stone sculpture that, as a result, are now largely overlooked, or even erased. This article provides a brief history of the collection and classification of Central Veracruz materials; an examination of the Stendahls' entrance into this market via bibliophile and antiquarian Guillermo Echániz; and a consideration of the practices that shaped prominent institutional and private collections and, in turn, the art historical canon.
When East Meets West: Chichen Itza, Tula, and the Postclassic Mesoamerican World, vol. 1, 2023
Although the distinct similarity of the monumental art of Tula and Chichén Itzá has been one of t... more Although the distinct similarity of the monumental art of Tula and Chichén Itzá has been one of the most compelling and confounding issues among scholars of ancient Mesoamerica, there has been little discussion of other sites that produced artwork in the Tula tradition and how they might relate to these two distant Early Postclassic poles of power. This study provides a survey and analysis of published and unpublished Tula-style monuments from lesser-known sites within Tula’s sphere of influence, and traces the origins of the style within Central and West Mexico, particularly within the modern states of Estado de México, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Puebla, Queretaro, and Tlaxcala. Broader comparison of a larger corpus of monuments not only highlights significant stylistic and thematic distinctions between Central Mexican and Maya manifestations of the Tula tradition, but also clarifies the relationships between Tula and the settlements within its hinterland.
In "Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest"
NOTE: This is the draft of a chapter that was published in the volume Flower Worlds: Religion, Ae... more NOTE: This is the draft of a chapter that was published in the volume Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Please consult and cite the published version as follows:
Turner, Andrew D. and Michael D. Mathiowetz
2021 “Flower Worlds: A Synthesis and Critical History.” In Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, edited by Michael D. Mathiowetz and Andrew D. Turner, pp. 3–32. Amerind Studies in Anthropology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, Michael D. Mathiowetz and Andrew D. Turner, eds., pp. 149-173. Amerind Studies in Anthropology Series. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2021
During the tumultuous Epiclassic period (AD 600-900), several smaller polities in Central Mexico ... more During the tumultuous Epiclassic period (AD 600-900), several smaller polities in Central Mexico and the Gulf Coast rose to prominence in the wake of the collapsed metropolis of Teotihuacan. Although this period is often characterized by rampant militarism, wide-ranging economic activities, and eclectic monumental art programs that incorporate foreign styles, few studies have considered the role that religious ideology played in these phenomena. Flower World imagery is prevalent in the monumental and portable artwork of Cacaxtla, Xochicalco, Teotenango, and other Epiclassic polities. While beliefs pertaining to a solar paradise inhabited by the souls of deceased warriors were inherited from Teotihuacan, Epiclassic elites adapted and modified aspects of the Flower World complex to suit new political and economic strategies. The Epiclassic Flower World complex valorized warfare and linked elites through shared ritual practice, identity, and exchange of exotic prestige goods.
Ancient Mesoamerica, 2020
Previous studies have interpreted greenstone objects referred to as Olmec "spoon" pendants based ... more Previous studies have interpreted greenstone objects referred to as Olmec "spoon" pendants based on hypothetical utilitarian functions that they might have served. This study argues that the unique form of these pendants is actually based on the shell of the wing oyster (Pteria), a nacreous pearl-forming bivalve found on either coast of Mesoamerica. The study of these skeuomorphic recreations of shells sheds light on conceptual relationships between jade and iridescent shell, as well as the ideological motivations behind such material substitutions. Although wing oyster pendants were produced during only the Formative period, the Classic Maya continued to value pearls, formed by such nacre-producing mollusks. This study demonstrates the frequent appearance of pearls in Mesoamerican artwork. Wing oyster pendants constitute an early basis for the ritual interchangeability of jade, shell, and pearl, and the widespread conceptual associations of these valued materials with breath, wind, and ancestors among later Mesoamerican traditions.
Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands: Gods, Ancestors, and Human Beings, Brigitte Faugère and Christopher S. Beekman, eds., pp. 205-237. University Press of Colorado, Louisville, 2020
Migrations in Late Mesoamerica, Christopher S. Beekman, ed., pp. 205-240 University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 2019
The sudden appearance of Maya-style characteristics in the art of Epiclassic sites in Central Mex... more The sudden appearance of Maya-style characteristics in the art of Epiclassic sites in Central Mexico has sparked debate regarding the relationship between the polity of Cacaxtla and the distant Maya Lowlands. Early studies linked these developments to migrations of the Olmeca-Xicalanca of the southern Gulf Coast, described in ethnohistoric sources. Recent studies assert that Cacaxtla’s artists adopted an “eclectic” assortment of foreign stylistic elements in order to proclaim ties to distant sources of wealth and power that were not necessarily rooted in historic reality. This study argues that Cacaxtla’s artists deployed stylistic, technical, and iconographic conventions in a manner that reflects deep and sustained engagement with specific Maya cities, rather than superficial claims of aggrandizement. Evaluation through current anthropological understandings of how and why people migrate and how group identity is expressed in the midst of population movements suggests that Cacaxtla’s monumental art programs constitute an additional line of evidence in support of Epiclassic migration from the southern Gulf Coast or western Maya Lowlands to Central Mexico.
Estudios Indiana 13: Culturas visuales indígenas y las practicas estéticas en las Américas desde la antigüedad hasta el presente, 2019
While the merging of forms, themes, and content in Colonial art is often considered to reflect hy... more While the merging of forms, themes, and content in Colonial art is often considered to reflect hybrid identities of colonized peoples, this paper considers the ways that foreign imagery was incorporated and modified into vital traditional art genres as an active, selective, and strategic process. This study examines imagery and symbolism on a Colonial Inka painted wooden kero that portrays a ceremonial battle scene on one side, and a scene derived from a European print on the other. Despite the fact that the printed scene is contrary to certain aspects of Andean beliefs, the scene was incorporated into the vessel's decoration and modified to portray Andean symbolic content and the status of the vessel's owner. Taken together, the imagery on both sides convey important Andean cosmological themes. The probable owner of the kero was a kuraka, an indigenous noble who acted as an intermediary between Spanish colonizers and colonized Andean subjects. Kurakas commissioned objects such as painted keros that were not passive byproducts of hybrid colonized identities, but rather sent deliberate messages that conveyed power, prestige, and adherence to tradition to Spanish and Andean viewers alike.
Global Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, 2019
The ceramic tradition of the Moche culture of the Central Andes between 200 and 900 CE, and debat... more The ceramic tradition of the Moche culture of the
Central Andes between 200 and 900 CE, and
debates about examples depicting “homosexual” acts.
Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 2018
Arqueología Mexicana, 2018
Mexicon, 2017
ABSTRACT: This paper considers an enigmatic but recurring motif – a large, jutting headdress or c... more ABSTRACT: This paper considers an enigmatic but recurring motif – a large, jutting headdress or cranial element – exhibited by over a dozen feline pedestal sculptures that likely date to the Late Formative (300 BC – AD 250) period. Pedestal sculptures are found primarily in a region that encompasses the Pacific coast and piedmont of Guatemala and Mexico and the Guatemalan Highlands, but often lack good archaeological context due to their portability. We consider issues of dating and context for pedestal sculptures in general, and then address previous interpretations that have linked felines, like those that appear on the pedestals, to a conceptual domain revolving around rain and agricultural fertility. We diverge from previous scholars, however, by arguing that the cranial element on the felines represents cacao. In order to contextualize our arguments, we address evidence for the production of cacao during the Formative period and explore what appears to be an enduring iconography that linked cacao to felines in this region of Mesoamerica.
RESUMEN: Este trabajo examina un motivo iconográfico enigmático pero recurrente: el tocado craneal protuberante de gran tamaño que aparece un más de una docena de esculturas de pedestal felinas posiblemente del Formativo Tardío (300 AC – 250 DC). Las esculturas de pedestal se encuentran principalmente en la región comprendida por la costa del Pacífico, la bocacosta de Guatemala y México, y el altiplano de Guatemala. Sin embargo, suelen carecer de buenos contextos arqueológicos debido a su portabilidad. Consideramos problemas de fechamiento y contexto de las esculturas de pedestal en general y discutimos interpretaciones previas que han vinculado felinos como los que aparecen en los pedestales con un dominio conceptual centrado en la lluvia y la fertilidad. Discrepamos con estudios anteriores, sin embargo, pues sostenemos que el elemento craneal en los felinos representa cacao. Para contextualizar nuestros argumentos, discutimos la evidencia sobre la producción de cacao durante el período Formativo y exploramos lo que parece ser una iconografía duradera que vincula cacao y felinos en esta región de Mesoamérica.
Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 2017
Book Reviews by Andrew D Turner
American Anthropologist, 2022
This book traces the fascinating history of how and why ancient Mesoamerican objects have been co... more This book traces the fascinating history of how and why ancient Mesoamerican objects have been collected. It begins with the pre-Hispanic antiquities that first entered European collections in the sixteenth century as gifts or seizures, continues through the rise of systematic collecting in Europe and the Americas during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and ends in 1940—the start of Europe’s art market collapse at the outbreak of World War II and the coinciding genesis of the large-scale art market for pre-Hispanic antiquities in the United States.
Drawing upon archival resources and international museum collections, the contributors analyze the ways shifting patterns of collecting and taste—including how pre-Hispanic objects changed from being viewed as anthropological and scientific curiosities to collectible artworks—have shaped modern academic disciplines as well as public, private, institutional, and nationalistic attitudes toward Mesoamerican art. As many nations across the world demand the return of their cultural patrimony and ancestral heritage, it is essential to examine the historical processes, events, and actors that initially removed so many objects from their countries of origin.
An in-depth exploration of the history, authentication, and modern relevance of Códice Maya de Mé... more An in-depth exploration of the history, authentication, and modern relevance of Códice Maya de México, the oldest surviving book of the Americas.
Una exploración profunda de la historia, la autenticación y la relevancia moderna del Códice Maya... more Una exploración profunda de la historia, la autenticación y la relevancia moderna del Códice Maya de México, el libro más antiguo del continente americano.
Mathiowetz, Michael D., and Andrew D. Turner, eds. Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Amerind Seminars in Anthropology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2021
The Moche art style is best known through its highly refined ceramic vessels, which frequently ac... more The Moche art style is best known through its highly refined ceramic vessels, which frequently accompanied burials. Estimates suggest that there are over 100,000 Moche vessels in museum and private collections worldwide. The vessels, often decorated in a strongly pictorial style uncharacteristic of art of the Central Andean region, offer modern viewers tantalizing glimpses of Moche worldview. The highly consistent and formalized iconography on Moche vessels has been the topic of numerous studies, beginning around the middle of the last century, which have shed light on important aspects of Moche society such as mythology, social organization and ceremonialism. A particularly confounding subset of Moche ceramics portrays figures, including deities, skeletal beings, humans and animals, engaged in sexual acts. While such vessels inevitably arouse the interest of modern museum visitors, to date, relatively few scholarly studies have investigated the emic meanings of Moche sexual vessels and the artistic intent behind their creation. This study focuses on portrayals of an often-depicted Moche deity who, in this instance, copulates with a woman and argues that such images drew upon widespread beliefs concerning the functions of a vital cosmos and the role of ancestors to make potent ideological claims of legitimacy in a richly metaphorical visual landscape.
Journal for Art Market Studies, 2023
The role of the international art market in the looting, trafficking, and sale of Latin American ... more The role of the international art market in the looting, trafficking, and sale of Latin American antiquities has shaped the currently accepted canon of pre-Hispanic art to a degree that remains underrecognized. In the case of Classic Veracruz materials, Los Angeles-based Stendahl Art Galleries deftly exploited both a history of illicit excavations and an avant-garde collecting aesthetic to market archaeologically decontextualized objects. Beginning in the late 1930s, the Stendahls and their suppliers brought portable stone Mesoamerican ballgame equipment (yokes, palmas, and hachas) to the fore, which not only perpetuated the looting in Veracruz that robbed scholars and descendant communities of knowledge about the cultures that made them, but also of the opportunity to document, study, and view traditions of monumental stone sculpture that, as a result, are now largely overlooked, or even erased. This article provides a brief history of the collection and classification of Central Veracruz materials; an examination of the Stendahls' entrance into this market via bibliophile and antiquarian Guillermo Echániz; and a consideration of the practices that shaped prominent institutional and private collections and, in turn, the art historical canon.
When East Meets West: Chichen Itza, Tula, and the Postclassic Mesoamerican World, vol. 1, 2023
Although the distinct similarity of the monumental art of Tula and Chichén Itzá has been one of t... more Although the distinct similarity of the monumental art of Tula and Chichén Itzá has been one of the most compelling and confounding issues among scholars of ancient Mesoamerica, there has been little discussion of other sites that produced artwork in the Tula tradition and how they might relate to these two distant Early Postclassic poles of power. This study provides a survey and analysis of published and unpublished Tula-style monuments from lesser-known sites within Tula’s sphere of influence, and traces the origins of the style within Central and West Mexico, particularly within the modern states of Estado de México, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Puebla, Queretaro, and Tlaxcala. Broader comparison of a larger corpus of monuments not only highlights significant stylistic and thematic distinctions between Central Mexican and Maya manifestations of the Tula tradition, but also clarifies the relationships between Tula and the settlements within its hinterland.
In "Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest"
NOTE: This is the draft of a chapter that was published in the volume Flower Worlds: Religion, Ae... more NOTE: This is the draft of a chapter that was published in the volume Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Please consult and cite the published version as follows:
Turner, Andrew D. and Michael D. Mathiowetz
2021 “Flower Worlds: A Synthesis and Critical History.” In Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, edited by Michael D. Mathiowetz and Andrew D. Turner, pp. 3–32. Amerind Studies in Anthropology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, Michael D. Mathiowetz and Andrew D. Turner, eds., pp. 149-173. Amerind Studies in Anthropology Series. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2021
During the tumultuous Epiclassic period (AD 600-900), several smaller polities in Central Mexico ... more During the tumultuous Epiclassic period (AD 600-900), several smaller polities in Central Mexico and the Gulf Coast rose to prominence in the wake of the collapsed metropolis of Teotihuacan. Although this period is often characterized by rampant militarism, wide-ranging economic activities, and eclectic monumental art programs that incorporate foreign styles, few studies have considered the role that religious ideology played in these phenomena. Flower World imagery is prevalent in the monumental and portable artwork of Cacaxtla, Xochicalco, Teotenango, and other Epiclassic polities. While beliefs pertaining to a solar paradise inhabited by the souls of deceased warriors were inherited from Teotihuacan, Epiclassic elites adapted and modified aspects of the Flower World complex to suit new political and economic strategies. The Epiclassic Flower World complex valorized warfare and linked elites through shared ritual practice, identity, and exchange of exotic prestige goods.
Ancient Mesoamerica, 2020
Previous studies have interpreted greenstone objects referred to as Olmec "spoon" pendants based ... more Previous studies have interpreted greenstone objects referred to as Olmec "spoon" pendants based on hypothetical utilitarian functions that they might have served. This study argues that the unique form of these pendants is actually based on the shell of the wing oyster (Pteria), a nacreous pearl-forming bivalve found on either coast of Mesoamerica. The study of these skeuomorphic recreations of shells sheds light on conceptual relationships between jade and iridescent shell, as well as the ideological motivations behind such material substitutions. Although wing oyster pendants were produced during only the Formative period, the Classic Maya continued to value pearls, formed by such nacre-producing mollusks. This study demonstrates the frequent appearance of pearls in Mesoamerican artwork. Wing oyster pendants constitute an early basis for the ritual interchangeability of jade, shell, and pearl, and the widespread conceptual associations of these valued materials with breath, wind, and ancestors among later Mesoamerican traditions.
Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands: Gods, Ancestors, and Human Beings, Brigitte Faugère and Christopher S. Beekman, eds., pp. 205-237. University Press of Colorado, Louisville, 2020
Migrations in Late Mesoamerica, Christopher S. Beekman, ed., pp. 205-240 University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 2019
The sudden appearance of Maya-style characteristics in the art of Epiclassic sites in Central Mex... more The sudden appearance of Maya-style characteristics in the art of Epiclassic sites in Central Mexico has sparked debate regarding the relationship between the polity of Cacaxtla and the distant Maya Lowlands. Early studies linked these developments to migrations of the Olmeca-Xicalanca of the southern Gulf Coast, described in ethnohistoric sources. Recent studies assert that Cacaxtla’s artists adopted an “eclectic” assortment of foreign stylistic elements in order to proclaim ties to distant sources of wealth and power that were not necessarily rooted in historic reality. This study argues that Cacaxtla’s artists deployed stylistic, technical, and iconographic conventions in a manner that reflects deep and sustained engagement with specific Maya cities, rather than superficial claims of aggrandizement. Evaluation through current anthropological understandings of how and why people migrate and how group identity is expressed in the midst of population movements suggests that Cacaxtla’s monumental art programs constitute an additional line of evidence in support of Epiclassic migration from the southern Gulf Coast or western Maya Lowlands to Central Mexico.
Estudios Indiana 13: Culturas visuales indígenas y las practicas estéticas en las Américas desde la antigüedad hasta el presente, 2019
While the merging of forms, themes, and content in Colonial art is often considered to reflect hy... more While the merging of forms, themes, and content in Colonial art is often considered to reflect hybrid identities of colonized peoples, this paper considers the ways that foreign imagery was incorporated and modified into vital traditional art genres as an active, selective, and strategic process. This study examines imagery and symbolism on a Colonial Inka painted wooden kero that portrays a ceremonial battle scene on one side, and a scene derived from a European print on the other. Despite the fact that the printed scene is contrary to certain aspects of Andean beliefs, the scene was incorporated into the vessel's decoration and modified to portray Andean symbolic content and the status of the vessel's owner. Taken together, the imagery on both sides convey important Andean cosmological themes. The probable owner of the kero was a kuraka, an indigenous noble who acted as an intermediary between Spanish colonizers and colonized Andean subjects. Kurakas commissioned objects such as painted keros that were not passive byproducts of hybrid colonized identities, but rather sent deliberate messages that conveyed power, prestige, and adherence to tradition to Spanish and Andean viewers alike.
Global Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, 2019
The ceramic tradition of the Moche culture of the Central Andes between 200 and 900 CE, and debat... more The ceramic tradition of the Moche culture of the
Central Andes between 200 and 900 CE, and
debates about examples depicting “homosexual” acts.
Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 2018
Arqueología Mexicana, 2018
Mexicon, 2017
ABSTRACT: This paper considers an enigmatic but recurring motif – a large, jutting headdress or c... more ABSTRACT: This paper considers an enigmatic but recurring motif – a large, jutting headdress or cranial element – exhibited by over a dozen feline pedestal sculptures that likely date to the Late Formative (300 BC – AD 250) period. Pedestal sculptures are found primarily in a region that encompasses the Pacific coast and piedmont of Guatemala and Mexico and the Guatemalan Highlands, but often lack good archaeological context due to their portability. We consider issues of dating and context for pedestal sculptures in general, and then address previous interpretations that have linked felines, like those that appear on the pedestals, to a conceptual domain revolving around rain and agricultural fertility. We diverge from previous scholars, however, by arguing that the cranial element on the felines represents cacao. In order to contextualize our arguments, we address evidence for the production of cacao during the Formative period and explore what appears to be an enduring iconography that linked cacao to felines in this region of Mesoamerica.
RESUMEN: Este trabajo examina un motivo iconográfico enigmático pero recurrente: el tocado craneal protuberante de gran tamaño que aparece un más de una docena de esculturas de pedestal felinas posiblemente del Formativo Tardío (300 AC – 250 DC). Las esculturas de pedestal se encuentran principalmente en la región comprendida por la costa del Pacífico, la bocacosta de Guatemala y México, y el altiplano de Guatemala. Sin embargo, suelen carecer de buenos contextos arqueológicos debido a su portabilidad. Consideramos problemas de fechamiento y contexto de las esculturas de pedestal en general y discutimos interpretaciones previas que han vinculado felinos como los que aparecen en los pedestales con un dominio conceptual centrado en la lluvia y la fertilidad. Discrepamos con estudios anteriores, sin embargo, pues sostenemos que el elemento craneal en los felinos representa cacao. Para contextualizar nuestros argumentos, discutimos la evidencia sobre la producción de cacao durante el período Formativo y exploramos lo que parece ser una iconografía duradera que vincula cacao y felinos en esta región de Mesoamérica.
Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 2017
American Anthropologist, 2022
Journal of Anthropological Research, 2022
By addressing images and vessels with regard to their qualities as carriers and containers, this ... more By addressing images and vessels with regard to their qualities as carriers and containers, this workshop sets out to think past conventional oppositions of visuality and materiality. Through a series of conversations based on readings and case studies, it seeks to open up new transdisciplinary and transcultural perspectives for interrogating the very notions of ‘image’, ‘thing’ and ‘object’ in space, time, cultures and media.
During the tumultuous Epiclassic period (AD 600-900), several smaller polities in Central Mexico ... more During the tumultuous Epiclassic period (AD 600-900), several smaller polities in Central Mexico and the Gulf Coast rose to prominence in the wake of the collapsed metropolis of Teotihuacan. Although this period is often characterized by rampant militarism, wide-ranging economic activities, and eclectic monumental art programs that incorporate foreign styles, few studies have considered the role that religious ideology played in these phenomena. Flower World imagery is prevalent in the monumental and portable artwork of Cacaxtla, Xochicalco, Teotenango, and other Epiclassic polities. While beliefs pertaining to a solar paradise inhabited by the souls of deceased warriors were inherited from Teotihuacan, Epiclassic elites adapted and modified aspects of the Flower World complex to suit new political and economic strategies. The Epiclassic Flower World complex valorized warfare and linked elites through shared ritual practice, identity, and exchange of exotic prestige goods.
Far more than stages for athletic spectacle, ballcourts were ritually charged spaces that provide... more Far more than stages for athletic spectacle, ballcourts were ritually charged spaces that provided access to otherworldly powers and served as symbolic water sources. Ballcourts are often paired with pyramidal temples, in what likely represents the concept of altepetl, or " water mountain, " the essentialized Mesoamerican city. The conceptual ballcourt-temple pairing has deep roots in Mesoamerica, but likely spread along with the proliferation of ballcourts and ballgame paraphernalia during the Epiclassic period (A.D. 600-900). At the same time ballgame ceremonialism spread across Mesoamerica, ballgame architecture became more standardized in terms of forms, features, and dimensions. Ballcourts were distilled into a few essential forms during the Postclassic periods and were, by the time of European contact, essential features of most Mesoamerican cities.
In a myth that provided a charter for Mexica domination of Central Mexico, the deity Huitzilopoch... more In a myth that provided a charter for Mexica domination of Central Mexico, the deity Huitzilopochtli defeated his foes with a spear-thrower in the form of a fire serpent, or Xiuhcoatl. While Huitzilopochtli was a being unique to the Mexica, the Xiuhcoatl is generally considered to derive from an earlier entity referred to as the Teotihuacan War Serpent. Although the influence of Teotihuacan symbolism on later cultures of Central Mexico is undeniable, the portrayal of solar deities with supernatural zoomorphic weapons is more readily apparent in art of the Late Classic Maya Lowlands. Classic Maya solar deities and rulers often wield lances in the form of skeletal centipedes with protruding tongues made of flint. This paper explores the relationship between supernatural centipedes and fire serpents and argues that Maya conceptions of solar weaponry contributed to the development of the bellicose sun gods of Late Postclassic Central Mexico.
The proliferation of ballcourts at major sites such as El Tajín and Xochicalco during the Late Cl... more The proliferation of ballcourts at major sites such as El Tajín and Xochicalco during the Late Classic period suggests that the Mesoamerican ballgame and its associated architectural features played a crucial role in the expression of power and identity in the tumultuous centuries that followed the collapse of Teotihuacan. This paper investigates the role of Late Classic ballcourts in fostering, shaping, and manifesting cross-cultural interaction through focus on sites from three different regions: Xochicalco in Central Mexico, El Tajín on the Gulf Coast, and Copán in the Southern Maya Lowlands. While several earlier scholars have noted distinct similarities in ballgame art and architecture shared among these sites, they have been hesitant to explain how and why such features should be shared across vast distances. As focal points of public ritual and spectacle, ballcourts served as spaces that mediated cross-cultural interaction, and may have been constructed in part to impress visiting dignitaries or merchants from distant allied or rival polities. Likewise, similarities in ballgame architecture and associated artistic embellishment could signal mutual affiliation to foreign visitors, and thus may have been prone to emulation among different cities.
One of the most important breakthroughs in the study of indigenous religions in the Americas is t... more One of the most important breakthroughs in the study of indigenous religions in the Americas is the identification of the Flower World, a solar and floral spiritual domain that is widely shared in diverse manifestations among prehispanic and contemporary native cultures in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Based on Jane Hill’s identification of the complex in the oral canons of Uto-Aztecan language speakers in the 1990s, subsequent scholarship by archaeologists, art historians, ethnologists, and linguists have emphasized both the antiquity and geographical extent of similar beliefs among a multitude of ethnic and linguistic groups in the New World. The Flower World is not simply an ethereal otherworldly domain, but rather it is very much a lived experience activated, invoked, and materialized through ritual practices, expressed in verbal and visual metaphors, and embedded in the production and use of material objects. Despite widening recognition of its broad distribution and centrality in indigenous belief systems, this symposium is the first to bring together scholars whose work directly engages the nature and representation of Flower World in material culture, beliefs, and practices, and its various historical and contemporary manifestations in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. While widespread and diverse in representation, this complex was not present among all cultures at all times in these regions. For this reason, a comprehensive history of the Flower World sheds light on the origins of this key aspect of religion, the circumstances of its dissemination among societies in Mexico and Central America, and the history of its transmission between societies in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, as well as its role in shaping ritual economy, politics, cross-cultural interaction.
Reconsidering the "Epic" in the Epiclassic Period of Mesoamerica Cynthia Kristan-Graham & Andre... more Reconsidering the "Epic" in the Epiclassic Period of Mesoamerica
Cynthia Kristan-Graham & Andrew Turner, organizers
The Epiclassic period (AD 600-900) embodies “epic” in both its noun and adjective forms, referring to heroic narratives and something that is impressive and grand in scale. The volumes "Mesoamerica After the Decline of Teotihuacan" and "Twin Tollans" (both Dumbarton Oaks) illuminated this period, yet given a recent resurgence of scholarship devoted to the Epiclassic, further assessment is timely. The declines of Teotihuacan and the Classic Maya cites were nuanced processes, as were the growth and development of the cities that arose in response to new economic and political opportunities. Papers will address specific aspects of the Epiclassic period, including the evolution of new population centers, exchange patterns, language, and other symbol systems; the value of visual culture in helping to discern social change; archaeological evidence that affirms or suggests new chronologies; and archaeological evidence that expands the original idea parameters of the Epiclassic. Finally, some papers will offer theoretical models for approaching this crucial era in Mesoamerica and ponder the validity of the Epiclassic period as it is currently understood.
The second international symposium of the Getty Research Institute's Pre-Hispanic Art Provenance ... more The second international symposium of the Getty Research Institute's Pre-Hispanic Art Provenance Initiative focuses on collecting practices in Mexico and the United States, when Hollywood luminaries and international collectors developed a taste for ancient Mexican art. By the 1960s, the pre-Hispanic past underpinned Mexican national identity, gained new audiences in international museums, and played a formal role in the history of art.
El segundo simposio internacional de la Iniciativa sobre la procedencia del arte prehispánico (PHAPI) del Getty Research Institute se centra en las prácticas del coleccionismo en México y de los Estados Unidos, cuando las luminarias de Hollywood y los coleccionistas internacionales desarrollaron un gusto por el arte mexicano antiguo. Para la década de 1960, el pasado prehispánico era parte integral de la identidad nacional mexicana, ganó nuevas audiencias en museos internacionales y jugó un papel formal en la historia del arte.
Mathiowetz and Turner (2021). Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest ( University of Arizona Press), 2021
Youtube Video Link: https://youtu.be/EU0WQjE1ma8 _________________ This talk was presented by ... more Youtube Video Link: https://youtu.be/EU0WQjE1ma8
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This talk was presented by Michael D. Mathiowetz and Andrew D. Turner as a promotional for a new volume titled "Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" that was edited by Mathiowetz and Turner and published through the University of Arizona Press (2021). The ZOOM presentation occurred on March 8, 2021 as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute speaker series through the University of Arizona.
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Description:
The "Flower Worlds" edited volume illuminates the origins of flower worlds as a key aspect of religions and histories among various societies in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. It explores the role of flower worlds in shaping ritual economies, politics, and interactions among Indigenous peoples extending over 2,500 years. This volume stresses contemporary perspectives and experiences of living Indigenous traditions as well as the historical trajectories of flower worlds by melding scientific and humanistic research.