Astronomers, Scribes, and Priests: Intellectual Interchange Between the Northern Maya Lowlands and Highland Mexico in the Late Postclassic Period

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Gabrielle Vail, Christine L. Hernández
Harvard University Press, 2010 - History - 431 pages
Astronomers, Scribes, and Priests examines evidence for cultural interchange among the intellectual powerbrokers in Postclassic Mesoamerica, specifically those centered in the northern Maya lowlands and the central Mexican highlands. Contributors to the volume's thirteen chapters bring an interdisciplinary perspective to understanding the interactions that led to shared content in hieroglyphic codices and mural art. The authors address similarities in artifacts, architectural styles, and building alignments--often produced in regions separated by hundreds of miles--based on their analyses of iconographic, archaeological, linguistic, and epigraphic material. The volume includes a wealth of new data and interpretive frameworks in this comprehensive discussion of a critical time period in the Mesoamerican past.
 

Contents

Introduction
17
Chapter Two Interaction between Central and Eastern
37
Chapter Three Evidence for MayaMexican Interaction in
77
Tulúm Santa Rita
145
Chapter Six Scribal Interaction in Postclassic Mesoamerica
193
Chapter Seven Linguistic Evidence for Historical Contacts between
217
Chapter Eight Nahua Vocables in a Maya Song of the Fall
241
Introduction
263
Chapter Nine SolarBased Cartographic Traditions of the Mexica
279
Chapter Ten A Comparison of Venus Instruments in the Borgia
309
Evidence from
333
A Discussion of
369
Chapter Thirteen Highland Mexican and Maya Intellectual Exchange
383
Glossary
407
Index
415
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About the author (2010)

Gabrielle Vail is Researcher in Anthropology at Tulane University. Christine Hernández is Lecturer in Anthropology at Southeastern Louisiana University.

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