Cenote of Sacrifice

Cenote of Sacrifice
Author :
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Total Pages : 177
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781477302736
ISBN-13 : 1477302735
Rating : 4/5 (735 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Cenote of Sacrifice by : Clemency Chase Coggins

Download or read book Cenote of Sacrifice written by Clemency Chase Coggins and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chichén Itzá ("mouth of the well of the Itza") was one of the great centers of civilization in prehistoric America, serving between the eighth and twelfth centuries A.D. as a religious, economic, social, and political capital on the Yucatán Peninsula. Within the ancient city there were many natural wells or cenotes. One, within the ceremonial heart of the city, is an impressive natural feature with vertical limestone walls enclosing a deep pool of jade green water some eighty feet below ground level. This cenote, which gave the city its name, became a sacred shrine of Maya pilgrimage, described by one post-Conquest observer as similar to Jerusalem and Rome. Here, during the city's ascendancy and for centuries after its decline, the peoples of Yucatán consulted their gods and made ritual offerings of precious objects and living victims who were thought to receive prophecies. Although the well was described by Bishop Diego de Landa in the late sixteenth century, its contents were not known until the early 1900s when revealed by the work of Edward H. Thompson. Conducting excavations for the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, Thompson recovered almost thirty thousand artifacts, most ceremonially broken and many beautifully preserved by burial in the deep silt at the bottom of the well. The materials were sent to the Peabody Museum, where they remained, unexhibited, for over seventy years. In 1984, for the first time, nearly three hundred objects of gold, jade, copper, pottery, wood, copal, textile, and other materials from the collection were gathered into a traveling interpretive exhibition. No other archaeological exhibition had previously given this glimpse into Maya ritual life because no other collection had objects such as those found in the Sacred Cenote. Moreover, the objects from the Cenote come from throughout Mesoamerica and lower Central America, representing many artistic traditions. The exhibit and this, its accompanying catalog, marked the first time all of the different kinds of offerings have ever been displayed together, and the first time many have been published. Essays by Gordon R. Willey and Linnea H. Wren place the Cenote of Sacrifice and the great Maya city of Chichén Itzá within the larger context of Maya archaeology and history. The catalog entries, written by Clemency Chase Coggins, describe the objects displayed in the traveling exhibition. Some entries are brief descriptive statements; others develop short scholarly themes bearing on the function and interpretation of specific objects. Coggins' introductory essay describes how the objects were collected by Thompson and how the exhibition collection has been studied to reveal the periods of Cenote ritual and the changing practices of offering to the Sacred Cenote.


Cenote of Sacrifice Related Books

Cenote of Sacrifice
Language: en
Pages: 177
Authors: Clemency Chase Coggins
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-10-03 - Publisher: University of Texas Press

GET EBOOK

Chichén Itzá ("mouth of the well of the Itza") was one of the great centers of civilization in prehistoric America, serving between the eighth and twelfth cen
Artifacts from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan
Language: en
Pages: 430
Authors: Clemency Coggins
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 1992 - Publisher: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Publications Department

GET EBOOK

In this volume, specialists analyze the great variety of objects found in the Well of Sacrifice and debate whether they represent evidence of dateable prehistor
New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society
Language: en
Pages: 327
Authors: Vera Tiesler
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007-02-15 - Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

GET EBOOK

This book examines Maya sacrifice and related posthumous body manipulation. The editors bring together an international group of contributors from the area stud
The Ancient Maya
Language: en
Pages: 940
Authors: Sylvanus Griswold Morley
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 1994 - Publisher: Stanford University Press

GET EBOOK

"Comprehensive synthesis of ancient Maya scholarship. Extensive summary of the archaeology of the Maya world provides the historical context for a detailed topi
The Cenote
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Chelsea Bagley Dyreng
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015 - Publisher: Sweetwater Books

GET EBOOK

Forced to marry a complete stranger, Sandpiper tries to adjust to life in her new village. But the mysterious Cenote, a great pool of water, has bewitched the m