Download or read book The Judicial Tug of War written by Adam Bonica and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a novel theory explaining how and why politicians and lawyers politicise courts.
Download or read book Politics of the Maya Court written by Sarah E. Jackson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-06-24 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, advances in deciphering Maya hieroglyphic writing have given scholars new tools for understanding key aspects of ancient Maya society. This book—the first comprehensive examination of the Maya royal court—exemplifies the importance of these new sources. Authored by anthropologist Sarah E. Jackson and richly illustrated with drawings, photographs, and maps, Politics of the Maya Court uses hieroglyphic and iconographic evidence to explore the composition and social significance of royal courts in the Late Classic period (a.d. 600–900), with a special emphasis on the role of courtly elites. As Jackson explains, the Maya region of southern Mexico and Central America was not a unified empire but a loosely aggregated culture area composed of independent kingdoms. Royal courts had a presence in large, central communities from Chiapas to Yucatan and the highlands of Guatemala and western Honduras. Each major polity was ruled by a k’uhul ajaw, or holy lord, who embodied intertwined aspects of religious and political authority. The hieroglyphic texts that adorned walls, furniture, and portable items in these centers of power provide specific information about the positions, roles, and meanings of the courts. Jackson uses these documents as keys to understanding Classic Maya political hierarchy and, specifically, the institution of the royal court. Within this context, she investigates the lives of the nobility and the participation of elites in court politics. By identifying particular individuals and their life stories, Jackson humanizes Maya society, showing how events resulted from the actions and choices of specific people. Jackson’s innovative portrayal of court membership provides a foundation for scholarship on the nature, functions, and responsibilities of Maya royal courts.
Download or read book Ancient Maya Politics written by Simon Martin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-18 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With new readings of ancient texts, Ancient Maya Politics unlocks the long-enigmatic political system of the Classic Maya.
Download or read book Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya written by Andrew K. Scherer and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the tombs of the elite to the graves of commoners, mortuary remains offer rich insights into Classic Maya society. In Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya: Rituals of Body and Soul, the anthropological archaeologist and bioarchaeologist Andrew K. Scherer explores the broad range of burial practices among the Maya of the Classic period (AD 250–900), integrating information gleaned from his own fieldwork with insights from the fields of iconography, epigraphy, and ethnography to illuminate this society’s rich funerary traditions. Scherer’s study of burials along the Usumacinta River at the Mexican-Guatemalan border and in the Central Petén region of Guatemala—areas that include Piedras Negras, El Kinel, Tecolote, El Zotz, and Yaxha—reveals commonalities and differences among royal, elite, and commoner mortuary practices. By analyzing skeletons containing dental and cranial modifications, as well as the adornments of interred bodies, Scherer probes Classic Maya conceptions of body, wellness, and the afterlife. Scherer also moves beyond the body to look at the spatial orientation of the burials and their integration into the architecture of Maya communities. Taking a unique interdisciplinary approach, the author examines how Classic Maya deathways can expand our understanding of this society’s beliefs and traditions, making Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya an important step forward in Mesoamerican archeology.
Download or read book Deep Roots written by Avidit Acharya and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Despite dramatic social transformations in the United States during the last 150 years, the South has remained staunchly conservative. Southerners are more likely to support Republican candidates, gun rights, and the death penalty, and southern whites harbor higher levels of racial resentment than whites in other parts of the country. Why haven't these sentiments evolved or changed? Deep Roots shows that the entrenched political and racial views of contemporary white southerners are a direct consequence of the region's slaveholding history, which continues to shape economic, political, and social spheres. Today, southern whites who live in areas once reliant on slavery--compared to areas that were not--are more racially hostile and less amenable to policies that could promote black progress. Highlighting the connection between historical institutions and contemporary political attitudes, the authors explore the period following the Civil War when elite whites in former bastions of slavery had political and economic incentives to encourage the development of anti-black laws and practices. Deep Roots shows that these forces created a local political culture steeped in racial prejudice, and that these viewpoints have been passed down over generations, from parents to children and via communities, through a process called behavioral path dependence. While legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act made huge strides in increasing economic opportunity and reducing educational disparities, southern slavery has had a profound, lasting, and self-reinforcing influence on regional and national politics that can still be felt today. A groundbreaking look at the ways institutions of the past continue to sway attitudes of the present, Deep Roots demonstrates how social beliefs persist long after the formal policies that created those beliefs have been eradicated."--Jacket.
Download or read book Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya written by Carla McKinney Brenner and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Curbing the Court written by Brandon L. Bartels and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-20 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains when, why, and how citizens try to limit the Supreme Court's independence and power-- and why it matters.
Download or read book Motul de San Jos written by Antonia E. Foias and published by . This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume is the first of its kind. A complex mosaic of how a relatively small Late Classic Maya polity was economically, socially, and politically organized. A must-read for all Maya scholars."--James F. Garber, editor of The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley "The editors have assembled a remarkable array of evidence, including several innovative analytical methods. The product is a synthetic model that will shape how we understand and study Classic Maya political economy for the next several decades."--Jason Yaeger, editor of Classic Maya Provincial Politics Scholars have long debated the nature of Maya political organization during the Classic period (AD 250-950). Complex questions regarding political centralization, economic change, and the role of politics and economics in the rise and collapse of the civilization have been examined and reexamined from a variety of perspectives. Antonia Foias and Kitty Emery have assembled a broad collection of essays all focused on a single polity, that of Motul de San José. By presenting a coherent interdisciplinary body of archaeological and environmental data, the volume offers an intensely deep, focused investigation of the various models of the ancient Maya political and economic systems. Research conducted over six seasons of fieldwork reveals a more centralized political system than expected and uncovers the workings of the ancient economic structure. The contributors offer new details concerning how involved royals and nonroyal elites were in the politics of nearby states, as well as an extensive tribute system. Antonia E. Foias is professor of anthropology at Williams College. Kitty F. Emery is associate curator of the Florida Museum of Natural History and associate professor at the University of Florida. A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase
Download or read book Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities written by Karen Bassie-Sweet and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-10-22 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The K’iche’ Maya creation story preserved in the sixteenth-century manuscript Popol Vuh describes the origin of the world and its people in a setting long assumed to be the Guatemalan central highlands. Now a scholar with a deep knowledge of Maya history shows that all of these mythological events occurred at specific locations and that this landscape was the template for the Maya worldview. Examining the primary Maya deities, Karen Bassie-Sweet links geographic features to gods and beliefs. She reconstructs key elements of the Popol Vuh to argue that the three volcanoes around Lake Atitlan were the three thunderbolt gods and that the lake was the center of the world. She also shows that the Maya view of the creation of humans is centered on corn and examines core beliefs about the corn cycle to propose that the creation myth was established much earlier in Maya history than previously supposed. Generously illustrated, Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities is a detailed ethnohistorical analysis of Maya religion, cosmology, and ritual practice that convincingly links mythology to the land. A comprehensive treatment of Maya religion, it provides an essential resource for scholars and will fascinate any reader captivated by these ancient beliefs.
Download or read book Calculating Brilliance written by Gerardo Aldana and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contextualizes the discovery of a Venus astronomical pattern by a female Mayan astronomer at Chich'en Itza and the discovery's later adaptation and application at Mayapan. Calculating Brilliance brings different intellectual threads together across time and space, from the Classic to the Postclassic, the colonial period to the twenty-first century to offer a new vision for understanding Mayan astronomy.
Download or read book The Mesoamerican Ballgame written by Vernon L. Scarborough and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Precolumbian ballgame, played on a masonry court, has long intrigued scholars because of the magnificence of its archaeological remains. From its lowland Maya origins it spread throughout the Aztec empire, where the game was so popular that sixteen thousand rubber balls were imported annually into Tenochtitlan. It endured for two thousand years, spreading as far as to what is now southern Arizona. This new collection of essays brings together research from field archaeology, mythology, and Maya hieroglyphic studies to illuminate this important yet puzzling aspect of Native American culture. The authors demonstrate that the game was more than a spectator sport; serving social, political, mythological, and cosmological functions, it celebrated both fertility and the afterlife, war and peace, and became an evolving institution functioning in part to resolve conflict within and between groups. The contributors provide complete coverage of the archaeological, sociopolitical, iconographic, and ideological aspects of the game, and offer new information on the distribution of ballcourts, new interpretations of mural art, and newly perceived relations of the game with material in the Popol Vuh. With its scholarly attention to a subject that will fascinate even general readers, The Mesoamerican Ballgame is a major contribution to the study of the mental life and outlook of New World peoples.
Download or read book The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court written by Mary Miller and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Located within the deep tropical rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico, the Maya site of Bonampak is home to the most complete and magnificent mural program of the ancient Americas. In three rooms, a pageant of rulership opens up, scene by scene, like pages of an ancient Maya book. Painted c. AD 800, the murals of Bonampak reveal a complex and multifaceted view of the ancient Maya at the end of their splendor during the last days of the Classic era. Members of the royal court engage in rituals and perform human sacrifice, dance in extravagant costumes and strip the clothing from fallen captives, acknowledge foreign nobles, and receive abundant tribute. The murals are a powerful and sophisticated reflection on the spectacle of courtly life and the nature of artistic practice, a window onto a world that could not know its doomed future. This major new study of the paintings of Bonampak incorporates insights from decades of art historical, epigraphic, and technical investigation of the murals, framing questions about artistic conception, facture, narrative, performance, and politics. Lavishly illustrated, this book assembles thorough documentation of the Bonampak mural program, from historical photographs of the paintings—some never before published—to new full-color reconstructions by artist Heather Hurst, recipient of a MacArthur award, and Leonard Ashby. The book also includes a catalog of photographs, infrared images, and line drawings of the murals, as well as images of all the glyphic texts, which are published in their entirety for the first time. Written in an engaging style that invites both specialists and general readers alike, this book will stand as the definitive presentation of the paintings for years to come.
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.
Download or read book Invading Guatemala written by Matthew Restall and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The invasions of Guatemala -- Pedro de Alvarado's letters to Hernando Cortes, 1524 -- Other Spanish accounts -- Nahua accounts -- Maya accounts
Download or read book The Popol Vuh written by Lewis Spence and published by New York : AMS Press. This book was released on 1908 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Her Day in Court written by Maya Shatzmiller and published by Islamic Legal Studies Program @ Harvard Law School. This book was released on 2007 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of the historical record of property rights and equity of Muslim women is based on Islamic court documents of 15th-century Granada. The book examines women's legal entitlements to acquire property, and the social and economic significance of these rights to Granada's female population and--by extension--to women in other Islamic societies.
Download or read book Her Cup for Sweet Cacao written by Traci Ardren and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting new data from leading scholars in the field, this collection uses evidence from archaeology, hieroglyphic texts, chemical analyses, and art to explore the many ways food was integral to Classic Maya society.
