For all you people in the USA, the PBS science program Nova is going to air an episode called "Cracking the Maya Code" on April 8th, 8pm your local time.  Check your local TV listing for which local PBS channel is going to carry it. 

In the meantime, their website is up, although it's a bit sketchy right now.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mayacode/

The excellent Mesoweb just posted Allen Christenson's translations and transliterations of the ancient K'iche' Maya holy book Popol Vuh.  The Popul Vuh is arguably the greatest surviving pre-Columbian literary work.  It is both a book of the mythical creation of the larger Maya world as well as the history of the K'iche', one of the many Maya nations who lived in what is now Guatemala. 

If you have any interest in Native American literature, mythology, or just need something different to read, you should read it:

http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/index.html

I'd recommend the "English Translation" (http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf) because the author struck a balance between the original K'iche' version and a readable English translation.  Maya languages are extremely different from English, not just in terms of the vocabulary or grammar but almost in the way the world is perceived.

( Read more...including excerpts and ancient art )

Warning: Bush bashing coming up...

Stolen from la_azteca:

Priests to purify site after Bush visit
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070309/NEWS34/70309003/-1/NEWS

I think I'll donate some copal.  Or perhaps air fresheners to get rid of the lingering smell.

Now that I have a blog/journal where I post periodically, I decided that the link to my journal should be more prominent than the link hidden away in the menu. So I added an icon on the homepage with a directly link here. In the process of creating the icon, I needed a cool animal motif from an ancient culture. Without hesitation I went straight to the MayaVase Database:

http://research.famsi.org/kerrmaya.html

And found a cute little monkey (perhaps a capuchin) for my Journal icon, since monkeys were considered scribes in many cultures:



The MayaVase database is one of my favorite places on the web. It is a searchable database of roll-out pictures of Maya ceramic pieces. The pictures were taken by Justin Kerr, a photographer turned archaeologist, with his invention, a camera on a circular rail that can take one single continuous picture of the entire surface of a ceramic piece. These roll-outs have been circulating around the Maya archaeology community for close to 30 years, but recently they have been uploaded to the FAMSI (Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc) website at http://www.famsi.org/. The developers have taken great pains to add keywords to each picture that relate to the content of the piece, so that the images are searchable.

So what is the big fuzz about Maya ceramics? Many cultures of the world make pots, so what's special about the Maya ones? Well, for one, Maya pots often are decorated with scenes of mythology and texts. This allows archaeologists to study Maya culture in a private medium instead of the Maya culture as depicted in stone sculptures which were meant for public display. Since the audience of the pot is more private, the themes and subjects are far more varied than the larger-scale stone media. Yes, the pots often depict mythological scenes, but also superimposed with scenes from courtly life, like an old god flirting with a young nubile goddess, while others gossip behind their back. Just like other people, the ancient Maya could not resist having some fun even when dealing with serious subjects.

In the near absence of Maya books (there are only four surviving Maya books), Maya pots are also the closest we can get to Maya literature. Some pots depict protagonists speaking in the form of texts attached via speech scrolls to the protagonists' mouths, not unlike the convention used in modern comic books. Many of these stories appear repeatedly in different pots from different locations, so they must be part of a common mythology, but perhaps with local variations.

And of the most amazing discovery found in Maya pots is that the style of individual artists can be recognized and traced across different works. Moreover, some artists actually signed their work. This means that artists were highly respected and valued individuals in Maya society, and their fame is such that their works were probably used as royal gifts.

But not only are the pots useful for our understanding of the ancient Maya, they are also amazingly beautiful. In the best pots, the figures were well-drawn, even down to the anatomical level in the best pots. I have seen them in person at various exhibitions and one thing that always strikes me is the diminutive size of the pots. What this means is that the black outlines on the drawn figures are extremely dedicate, probably no more than one or two millimeters.

On a final note, the MayaVase database, as well as many other Maya-related online resources, exemplify the scholarship of the 21st century, because they put the resources that in the past resided in the domains of dusty library shelves into the Internet. Through such sharing of scholarly information, not only do specialists in the field profit, but also the common public has a easier path to the world of the past.

When I became interested in the "Maya", it was the ancient Maya, the people that had "disappeared" when the Spanish conquistadores arrived. Later, I not only learned that the Maya had not disappeared at all, but continued as a living culture into the modern day. I then learned that there isn't a "Maya" culture but hundreds of different but related Maya nations. Yucatec, Kekchiquel, Quiche, Tz'utujil, Mopan, Lacandon, etc. The list goes on and on.

Sadly, I also learned that despite their efforts to sustain their culture, the modern Maya have been under extreme pressure to abandon their way of life. They suffered years of oppression and exploitation from the elites of the countries they happened to fall under. But more severely, they become entangled in civil wars, becoming the scapegoats for both sides and the subject of genocidal campaigns.

Many modern Maya live in horrid conditions. Poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of health care, high infant mortality rate. On top of all this, in 2005, Hurricane Stan brought even more misery to the Maya living in Guatemala. One of the worst hit areas is Santiago Atitlan, in highland Guatemala about 80 km or 50 miles west of Guatemala City. Hundreds were buried alive in a pre-dawn landslide. Those who survived were left homeless.

One of the casualties of this tragedy was not human, but the Hospitalito Atitlan. This hospital has a sad but remarkable history. It was first opened in the 60's by a North American Catholic organization and headed by Father Stanley Rother. It served the local Tz'utujil Maya, who otherwise would have to travel around the Lake Atitlan in dangerous roads or across in a rickety boat ride to the nearest major hospital on the other side of the lake.

During the Guatemalan civil war, Father Rother became a target and in 1981 he was gunned down possibly by elements within the Guatemalan army. The Hospitalito declined when the military established a post between the hospital and the town. The final straw came in 1990 when 13 villagers were massacred by soldiers when they protested the presence of the military post. The Hospitalito shut down shortly after.

After nearly 15 years of dormancy, in April 2005, the Tz'utujil community and foreign NGO's brought back the Hospitalito back to life again into a fully functional ER and inpatient care center, staffed by Maya and foreign doctors.

Sadly, in October of the same year, only six months after the Hospitalito reopened, Hurricane Stan brought unprecedented level of rain to highland Guatemala, and the mudslide that resulted turned it overnight into a unusable building. The Guatemalan health ministry declared the area of the mudslide a mass grave and thus nothing can be rebuilt in situ.

However, instead of giving up, the Tz'utujil opted to give the Hospitalito yet another lease on its life. So, once again, the Hospitalito is slowly being rebuilt, this time at a different location that is not a prone to landslide as the previous one had been.

To keep up to date with the story of this amazing hospital and the even more amazing stories of the Tz'utujil people, you should visit:

http://www.puebloapueblo.org/

As I am writing this on Christmas Eve, perhaps you should consider helping the Hospital and the people it served in any way you can.