Sunday, June 20, 2010

Maya Papa

Attended a day-long seminar yesterday, entitled The Ancient Maya World, given by George Stuart, who's gotta be the longest-lived American Mayanist around.

Stuart spent his career working for National Geographic, and so had the freedom of both a fat expense account ("So then we hired this helicopter from the Guatemalan air force, . . . ") PLUS the quasi-official entré and gravitas offered by dropping the name itself, National Geographic. According to his account, he and his sidekicks spent a lifetime careening around Mesoamerica, having adventure after adventure. And making some historic finds. (Could this chap be the real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones? He certainly had some hair-raising escapades. According to him.)

Although it was more a random collection of entertaining yarn-spinning, rather than an organized, coherent series of academic lectures, the day still was interesting. Above are some faces in the crowd.
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Links:
FAMSI / Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies
Mesoweb
Cracking the Maya Code, online video from PBS
✱  Maya Vase Data Base - Justin Kerr's "rollout" pix: wonderful resource!
Below, drawing of a tomb at Copán, by Stuart, made in 1989:

2 comments:

Paula Scott Molokai Girl Studio said...

Sounds like a really good way to spend the day! I love that you sketch/draw wherever you go! I'm kinda feeling like I should do that too (not the first time I've had the urge), but...I keep forgetting to get going on it! ; )

Observe Closely said...

If you stash a small sketchbook and some pens in your bag or purse, you won't have any excuse not to get going. Practice makes perfect!