Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City [Hardcover]

Carolyn E. Tate (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1992

As archaeologists peel away the jungle covering that has both obscured and preserved the ancient Maya cities of Mexico and Central America, other scholars have only a limited time to study and understand the sites before the jungle, weather, and human encroachment efface them again, perhaps forever. This urgency underlies Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City, Carolyn Tate's comprehensive catalog and analysis of all the city's extant buildings and sculptures. During a year of field work, Tate fully documented the appearance of the site as of 1987. For each sculpture and building, she records its discovery, present location, condition, measurements, and astronomical orientation and reconstructs its Long Counts and Julian dates from Calendar Rounds. Line drawings and photographs provide a visual document of the art and architecture of Yaxchilan. More than mere documentation, however, the book explores the phenomenon of art within Maya society. Tate establishes a general framework of cultural practices, spiritual beliefs, and knowledge likely to have been shared by eighth-century Maya people. The process of making public art is considered in relation to other modes of aesthetic expression, such as oral tradition and ritual. This kind of analysis is new in Maya studies and offers fresh insight into the function of these magnificent cities and the powerful role public art and architecture play in establishing cultural norms, in education in a semiliterate society, and in developing the personal and community identities of individuals. Several chapters cover the specifics of art and iconography at Yaxchilan as a basis for examining the creation of the city in the Late Classicperiod. Individual sculptures are attributed to the hands of single artists and workshops, thus aiding in dating several of the monuments. The significance of headdresses, backracks, and other costume elements seen on monuments is tied to specific rituals and fashions, and influence fr

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Among the great urban relics of the Classic Maya period, few surpass Yaxchilan in its visual expression of the notion of ritual kingship. Tate's iconographic analysis provides convincing affirmation of this complexly elaborated theme in the site's numerous relief-carved lintels, stelae, and altars. She also convincingly advances the idea that these sculptures are, in turn, part of cosmically aligned ceremonial structures. Tate develops her thesis that the monuments are an intertwined articulation of social, dynastic, and religious functions through ethnographic evidence, archaeoastronomical calculations, hieroglyphic translation, and the meticulous scrutiny of the works' visual elements and principal themes. While the sculpture requires additional consideration in purely formalistic terms, Tate has made a significant beginning in formulating a notion of the Maya aesthetic. A very important addition to advanced subject collections.
-Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Art historian Carolyn Tate presents, in a well-organized and amply illustrated two-part format, a holistic treatment of a single archaeological site—the great ancient Maya city of Yaxchilan.... This is the most successful attempt to relate [art and architecture] within a Maya site that I have seen. (Ethnohistory )

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1st edition (1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292770413
• ISBN-13: 978-0292770416
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,244,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Treasure!, June 16, 2011

By 

Joan C Wrenn "author of 'Young Lords of Siyah... (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City (Hardcover)

If you have an interest in the details of the ancient Maya city of Yaxchilan, as I do, this book is an overflowing mine of sparkling diamonds. Tate has provided, in the second half, details of each building whose ruins and inscriptions have been found, with some black and white pictures to provide context, and proposed building dates. In addition there is a list of inscriptions by date and English 'translations' of the inscriptions as known by Mayan epigraphers in 1991. In the first half Tate provides an analysis of the elaborate and varied iconography of the monuments, how the iconic elements evolved over time. Possibly my favorite part is her analysis of the artists, the designs and techniques that identify them, and the monuments each potentially contributed to.

Put together, all this detail is a treasure-trove of information from which to imagine the life of the people of this city, living here in the eighth century CE and leaving their artistry and political propaganda for us to ponder. The glue that ties it together is to go to the ruins and walk amongst what is left of their buildings, climb their stairways, and sit on their benches listening to the monkeys and birds above you in the trees.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Academic book; I prefer more photos, April 8, 2010

By 

D. Maddux - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City (Hardcover)

This book is nice because I love the Mayan city of Yaxchilan, and it is really difficult to visit. The book is more for academic/college than general reading. I would have preferred that the book include more photos.