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 Over 500 titles added to the NMAI Library Collection through the generosity of the Smithsonian Women’s Committee : http://sinpr.com/friesema |
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Monthly Announcements
August 2011
1. Exhibition of Archaeological Wonder of the World Teotihuacan Opens at CaixaForum Madrid
2. William P. Palmer III Collection
3. Mexican Archaeologists Discover Two Partially-Mummified Bodies in Chihuahua
4. Fossils Reveal that Maya People Knew about Prehistory
5. New Mexico Museum of Art exhibition highlights exhibition by Native American artists
6. Santa Fe's Native American Art Market is Cultural Feast
7. After Raids Two Years Ago, Native American Artifact Dealers Slowly Regain Trust
8. Kellogg defends Toucan Sam against Maya Archaeology Initiative's logo
1. Exhibition of Archaeological Wonder of the World Teotihuacan Opens at CaixaForum Madrid
From the ArtDaily.org: MADRID.- For eight hundred years (from the 2nd century BC to the 7th AD), Teotihuacan was the cultural, political and religious centre of a powerful civilisation. Lying 45 kilometres from Mexico City, the city, which rose to become the sixth-largest in the world in its day, is now an archaeological wonder of the world, catalogued as World Heritage by UNESCO. The exhibition that ”la Caixa” Foundation now presents at CaixaForum Madrid, entitled Teotihuacan, City of the Gods, is the most complete ever devoted to Teotihuacan culture. The show features some 400 pieces, including many masterpieces unearthed in this pre-Hispanic city over a century of archaeological excavations. The objects featured, which include some very large pieces, show extraordinary refinement and a cosmopolitan spirit that was open to the most important cultures in Central America at the time. Visitors will discover this great city through exhibits illustrating the most outstanding facets of Teotihuacan culture: ideology, power, art, society, religion, war, traditions, everyday life and, needless to say, the influence on other pre-Hispanic civilizations. Teotihuacan, City of the Gods, which is organized by the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History, is presented at CaixaForum Madrid as part of a world tour that has taken the show to several other European cities, including Paris, Berlin and Rome, attracting over 350,000 visitors…
http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=49370
2. William P. Palmer III Collection
This unique collection housed at the University of Maine represents a broad spectrum of pre-Columbian and Northwest Coast art collected between 1965 and 1970. The items here include 550 tomb figures from the Colima, Jalisco, and Nayarit cultures of Western Mexico, along with 1150 ceramic figures from the Michoacán and Chupícuaro cultures of Mexico. Additionally, the collection includes ceramics and gold items from Panama, jade objects from Costa Rica, and a small clutch of Mississippian ceramics. On the homepage, visitors can learn a bit more about the collection, and then they will want to surely start browsing at their leisure. There are a few thematically organized sections here, and visitors won't want to miss the "Images for Eternity: West Mexican Tomb Figures" section in particular.
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2011.
http://scout.wisc.edu/
http://library.umaine.edu/hudson/palmer/
3. Mexican Archaeologists Discover Two Partially-Mummified Bodies in Chihuahua
From the ArtDaily.org: MEXICO CITY.- Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History found two human corpses that were partially mummified and a raramuri ancestor’s skeleton in the Cueva El Gigante (Giant’s Cave), located in Guerrero, in the Tarahumara Sierra in Chihuahua. The two mummies are now added to another eight that were found in the same place late last year. According to the specialists, the finding of the mummified individuals, which are thought to be between 800 and 1000 years old, are part of a Pre-hispanic burial ground, since, between 2010 and 2011, ten mummies and thirteen skeletons have been found in the cave.
Archaeologist Enrique Chacón, in charge of the Cueva El Gigante Archaeological Project, informed that the finding of the last two mummies and the skeleton was registered recently while excavation, documentation and register work was being finished on site. The mummies found last year, were found by three young men that reported them to the authorities who then called on INAH’s experts to investigate. Once the human remains had been registered and taken away from the cave to the Museo Comunitario de Historia Regional “Abraham González”, where afterwards the conservation and analysis stage will take place. This part of the study will also include the objects that were used to bury the ancient Tarahumaras in the cave.
Chacón said that some of the laboratory analysis that will be undertaken include Carbon-14 dating, to determine exactly the period in which the 23 individuals were buried, and the time they spent in the cemetery. During several weeks in 2011 and 2011, the team of archaeologists worked in the interior of the cave, where they identified 23 individuals, of whom ten are articulated, this means, that the extremities are united, and conserve tissue, so they were cataloged as partially mummified. The other thirteen individuals were conserved as skeletons…
http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=49527&b=mexican
4. Fossils Reveal that Maya People Knew about Prehistory
From the ArtDaily.org: MEXICO CITY.- Recent interdisciplinary investigations regarding 31 marine fossils found at Palenque Archaeological Zone, in Chiapas, reveal that Maya people conceived their beliefs parting from this kind of vestiges, so their idea of the underworld was associated to water. For Palenque inhabitants, marine fossils were the convincing proof of the land being covered by the sea long time ago, and parting from this fact they created their idea of the origin of the world, declared archaeologist Martha Cuevas, responsible, with geologist Jesus Alvarado, of research conducted by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Ongoing for 3 years, the investigation is oriented to understand symbolism given by ancient Mayas to Prehistoric vestiges, specifically the 31 specimens found at the archaeological site. The INAH researcher mentioned that petrified rests have been found mainly at funerary contexts, standing out the fossils of different marine animals, shark teeth and stingray spines deposited as part of funerary offerings.
“During investigation conducted at the North Group temples and the structure in front of them, slabs with marine fossils were used by Mayas as tombstones or offered to deities, which is important in the study of Maya cosmogony”. Until now, 31 fossils from different periods have been discovered, being the earliest from the Paleocene, nearly 63 million years ago. “Vestiges were used in ritual contexts during the Late Classic period (600-850 AD), when they were found by Palenque people”…
http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=38612
5. New Mexico Museum of Art exhibition highlights exhibition by Native American artists
From the ArtDaily.org: SANTA FE (AP).- A young Native Amerian boy named Chii stares straight into the camera of Vicki Monks. His long, dark hair is tussled by the breeze as she captures his solemn expression while he waits for his family on the edge of a Yuchi burial ground in Oklahoma. Monks is telling a story of sorts with Chii's photograph — a story about mixed American Indian ancestry. An age-old tradition among indigenous people throughout the world, the art of storytelling has transcended words for Monks and the other Native American artists who are part of the "New Native Photography, 2011" exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
Through a collection of seemingly simple and other more complex photographs, the artists are working to convey their perspective on everything from ancestry and environmental concerns to stereotypes and tribal sovereignty. "I think photography is an important element in storytelling," Monks told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "You can convey a lot of deeper meaning with photography and that adds to the body of storytelling."
For Monks, a Chickasaw who grew up with the Cherokees in Tahlequah, Okla., portraits of Native Americans of mixed tribal heritage has become a fascination. In the past, many tribes looked quite distinct from one another, she said. She could see it all blended together in Chii.
"For such a young child, he had a lot of depth of character in his face," she said. "You can also see the ancestry in his face. You can see the Navajo, you can see the Yuchi, you can see the Chippewa. It's there in him."
Monks is one of 19 artists from various tribes, nations and pueblos across the United States featured in the exhibition, which stems from a collaboration between the museum and the Southwestern Association of Indian Arts for its annual Indian Market…
http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=50154
6. Santa Fe's Native American Art Market is Cultural Feast
From the ArtDaily.org: SANTA FE (REUTERS).- Diego Romero, from New Mexico's Cochiti pueblo, spent months building pieces of pottery, melding traditional Native American art with his love of comic books to create a contemporary look at Indian culture. Standing by his booth on a packed Santa Fe street, his thin, black hair tied in a braid down his back, and wearing shorts and sneakers, he showed a single shallow bowl with golden trim surrounding a painted image of corn dancers. A second bowl, an "historical piece" depicting the hanging of Native Americans by the conquering Spaniards, sold for $6,000 hours after it went on sale at the Santa Fe Indian market. Romero said his highly sought after artwork chronicles time, history and human nature, integrating images of alcoholism, domestic abuse and exploitation of native culture, depicted like Greek mythical narratives embedded in clay. "They're narratives of the human condition. We've all been in the bar with a broken heart, or broken down on the highway of life," he said. The 47-year-old Berkeley-educated artist is one of more than 1,100 Native American artists gathered this weekend in Santa Fe for the largest Native arts market in the world. Produced by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), and considered the largest cultural event in the southwest, it brings together artists representing 100 U.S. Federally recognized tribes.
The event easily draws 100,000 visitors to Santa Fe's main square, including collectors, gallery owners, buyers and browsers from around the world, said Mark Trujillo, Indian Tourism program director for New Mexico…
http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=49997
7. After Raids Two Years Ago, Native American Artifact Dealers Slowly Regain Trust
From the ArtDaily.org:SANTA FE, N.M. (AP).- It's been two years since swarms of federal agents burst into nearly two dozen homes scattered throughout the archeologically rich Southwest, looking to take down what they believed was a criminal element robbing native American grave sites and illicitly selling or trading pieces of the nation's heritage. Prosecutors are nearly done working their way through the list of defendants charged following those raids, having negotiated plea agreements with most that have resulted in nothing more than probation. But for legitimate dealers and collectors of Indian artifacts, the sting in the rugged Four Corners region — where the boundaries of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado meet — is as fresh today as when the raids happened that summer day in 2009. Since then, they've been struggling to rebuild their reputations and to dispel the "fantasy" that they are part of a black market dealing in rare, pricey bits of American history — an illusory underground network which, they argue, doesn't exist at all. "There's not that much crime in this business. It's a very tiny fringe element," said Dace Hyatt, a restoration expert from Show Low, Ariz., who has served as an expert in some of the cases stemming from the raids.
Hyatt and fellow members of the Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association organized a discussion on the raids this week during the Whitehawk Antique Show, the nation's largest and longest-running Indian artifacts show…
http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=49960
8. Kellogg defends Toucan Sam against Maya Archaeology Initiative's logo
From the ArtDaily.org: SAN FRANCISCO (AP).- Kellogg Co. is asking a group working to defend Mayan culture to reconsider its logo, saying consumers can confuse it with Toucan Sam, the mascot of its Froot Loops cereal. An attorney for the world's largest cereal maker has sent a letter to the nonprofit Maya Archaeology Initiative saying Kellogg opposes the group's bid to trademark its logo. The attorney suggests a settlement that would limit the group's use of the image. The Maya Archaeology Initiative, based in San Ramon, says there is little similarity. It says its logo is based upon a realistic toucan native to Mesoamerica, while Toucan Sam is a cartoon character with the coloring of Froot Loops. The organization says that it hopes can resolve the matter with Kellogg, which is based in Battle Creek, Mich.
http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=50039&b=mayan
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