COMING TO SEE MYTHIC VISIONS? DON'T MISS UPM'S RECENTLY RENOVATED MESOAMERICAN GALLERY!

Since the early 1900s, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has been a leader in research on the ancient Maya and other peoples who lived in the area often referred to as "Mesoamerica"—encompassing Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Most of UPM's strong Mesoamerican collection, with more than 28,000 ancient artifacts, some dating to as early as 3,500 years ago, was obtained through field excavations that entailed careful recording and analysis, providing context for piecing together a richer understanding of these ancient peoples and the complex civilizations they built.

In spring 2001 UPM updated and reconceived its permanent Mesoamerican gallery, first opened in the 1930s, incorporating some of the newest information—and theories—about these sometimes-enigmatic peoples. Featuring new text, photographs, and more than 200 artifacts, the renovated gallery is designed to provide visitors with a structured, thematic approach, offering a general overview of cultures of the region and of the principal Mesoamerican civilizations that grew up, flourished, and influenced one another in the region and beyond.

Five world-famous grand stone monuments, or stelae, and two monumental circular altars from the Museum's early Maya excavations at Piedras Negras, Guatemala, and Caracol, Belize, dominate the gallery. When they were first set in the Museum, the elaborate inscriptions were impenetrable; since then, researchers at UPM and elsewhere have used these monuments and others to "crack the code" and read Maya hieroglyphs. The inscriptions on one of these monuments, Piedras Negras’ stela 14 (detail of which is shown here on the right), gave epigrapher Tatiana Proskouriakoff her first clues to the historical, rather than mythical, nature of Maya writing. We now know that the monuments provide details about the royal history of the Maya long before the coming of the Europeans. A new floor case on writing introduces visitors to Mesoamerican hieroglyphs, some of the materials on which writing is and was found, and some of the major epigraphers—or hieroglyph decipherers—who have made contributions in this rapidly changing field.

Additional wall and floor cases throughout the gallery examine a variety of general themes about ancient Mesoamerican peoples and their cultures. West Mexican shaman figurines of clay, a ceramic Aztec flute, and a nearly 3000-year-old miniature jade were-jaguar mask of the Olmec people, are some of the objects which introduce visitors to Mesoamerican religion, rich in rituals that included blood sacrifice, the burning of incense, music and dance. For ancient Mesoamericans all things had a life force, ancestors and gods could and would be invoked to help the living, and shamans could transform into animals like the powerful jaguar and communicate directly with gods.

A floor case features some of the 8th century burial materials discovered in the 1930s by UPM archaeologists at the ancient Maya site of Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Included are a host of sting ray spines, ritual blood drawing instruments, as well as clay and jade beads, oyster shell plaques, a bird effigy carved from a jaguar bone, and many human teeth inlaid with jade. Caches, or buried offerings, were also often deposited around the bases of monuments and beneath the floors and stairways of buildings. A lidded ceramic container like the one on display might have held flint, obsidian, jade and shell.

Other cases examine Mesoamerican concepts of beauty and what we know about everyday life in ancient Mesoamerica. On view are bracelets, pendants (jadeite example shown on left, probably from Guatemala; Object ID NA5897), necklaces, nose ornaments, lip plugs and ear plugs made of jade, shell, jaguar teeth and claws, and obsidian. Elaborate textiles were woven from native cotton, much as they are in some parts of that region today. Looms and weaving methods are featured.

Sports enthusiasts will be intrigued by the wall case that details what we know about the Mesoamerican ball game, played on a ball court with a rubber ball, and some variations, for more than 3,000 years. A ball player figurine circa A.D. 200-400, from the Gulf Coast of Mexico, provides information about what the players wore. Controversy still surrounds the elaborately decorated, horse shoe-shaped stone belts, or yokes. Some scholars contend that
the stone belts, like the 1200-year-old greenstone yoke from the Gulf Coast of Mexico on display, are ritual representations of actual belts made of softer materials. Others contend that the heavy stone belts were actually worn during the games, played in public courts with the highest of stakes—life or death to the players.

At excavation sites like Tikal in Guatemala and Copán in Honduras, UPM researchers have learned much about the architecture and public art of the ancient Maya, and a case on architecture brings visitors up-to-date on some recent finds. A small model of the facade of "Rosalila," a sacred building recently discovered by Honduran archaeologist Ricardo Agurcia Fasquelle during excavations at Copán in the 1990s, reveals the elaborately designed and brightly colored style of Maya architecture during the Early Classic period in the 5th century A.D.

Numerous hand-modeled clay figurines found throughout Mesoamerica’s early villages, from such groups as the Olmecs and Zapotecs, provide visitors with a chance to see diverse styles from as early as 1600 B.C., and speculate on their possible use; some scholars suggest religious uses, some believe they were toys for children.

The more scholars learn about Teotihuacan, an important city of central Mexico from about A.D. 100 to A.D. 700, the more they see its relationship to many of the surrounding cultures. One case, devoted to that influential Mesoamerican center, features several elegant death masks--two of greenstone, one of calcite--as well as figurines, vessels and an elaborate pottery incense burner, circa A.D. 200-600. It was several centuries after this early city collapsed that Aztecs migrated into the region and gave the city the name Teotihuacan, which means "dwelling place of the gods."

Other wall cases provide a rich array of sculpture and materials from diverse Mesoamerican groups. The Oaxaca Valley, with Zapotecs and Mixtecs (400 B.C. to A.D. 1000 and beyond), is represented with Zapotec large seated figurines and Mixtec smaller jade amulets. The Museum has some materials from lesser-known Classic Period Gulf Coast Cultures (A.D. 500-1000), including Remojadas. The function of the distinctive clay "smiling faces"
of Remojadas—like much about these cultures—remains a mystery. Likewise, the case on West Mexico (A.D. 150-500) and Guerrero (A.D. 300-600) features pottery figurines and stone masks from these peoples, about whom much is left to learn.

The Aztecs, or Mexica, arrived in Central Mexico about A.D. 1250, and a wall case on Central Mexico in the Postclassic features some of their material culture, including distinctive painted pottery, a warrior figurine of clay, and a pipe in the shape of Huehueteotl (Shown on left; Object ID NA5592), a god of great antiquity.

UPM is particularly rich in Classic Maya objects from the highlands of Guatemala, and renowned Chama polychome pottery with painted scenes is on display. (An example is shown here on the right; Object ID 38-14-1.) Materials from the Southeastern Borderland peoples of Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica include elaborately carved white marble vessels of the Ulua peoples, circa A.D. 600-1000, and jewelry from Costa Rican peoples circa A.D. 900-1520. These people developed their own distinctive art styles, drawing on traditions of the Maya and other, lesser known Central American cultures.

In the broad region of Mesoamerica today, continuity of tradition and cultures can be seen in some of the homemaking and craft traditions still employed in traditional villages, where people follow the ways of the ancestors. A case in the gallery brings the viewer up-to-date with examples of traditional crafts still practiced today.