Search

The Dojura indigenous community (Emberá-Chamí) of Colombia is losing its traditional iconography because it has also lost contact with its ancestral territories as a result of forced displacement. This article proposes construction of a methodology to recover those symbols based on Nonaka’s SECI (socialización, exteriorización, combinación e interiorización) model. This is meant to systematize signs and resignify them so that the community’s cosmogony in the territories its members currently inhabit allows them a sense of belonging to the environment. The article reveals how, through the systematization of this experience and different exercises of knowledge generation, it is possible to recover symbols and support a community learning process as part of safeguarding the cultural practice of bead weaving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent absorbed residue studies have confirmed that ceramic and shell containers were used for consuming Datura in precolumbian times. Until now, no one has identified what tools precolumbian people used to produce a concentrated hallucinogenic concoction. In this study, we used mass spectrometry to identify Datura residues (a flowering plant with hallucinogenic properties) in two late precolumbian composite bottles from the Central Arkansas River valley. Unlike the construction of most Mississippian bottles, the bottles in this study are unique because ceramic disks with a series of concentric perforations were incorporated in the bottles at the juncture of the bottle neck with the globular portion of the body. The organic residue analysis revealed Datura residues in both bottles. We argue that the internal clay disks served as strainers that allowed Datura producers to separate the hallucinogenic alkaloids from the Datura flower to produce a powerful liquid beverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with how Zapatismo has aesthetically addressed its political transformation and the aesthetic fruits it has achieved. To this end, the text interprets how the Zapatista identity has been created and re-created through the visual language of the 203 murals found in the territories of the Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities, and how this identity challenges official Mexican revolutionary imagery and creates a new activist iconography for Zapatista bases and the Zapatista solidarity movement. The work on iconographic creation and restructuring has been theoretically inspired by Geneviève Zubrzycki. The article concludes that the Zapatista murals have common features, the result of an amalgamation of not explicit conceptions of various external and internal subjects that have been confronting the link between art and social transformation in different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este trabajo identifica íconos de numerales asociados a dos tipos de cómputo del tiempo plasmados en el arte de Teotihuacan durante el periodo Clásico (150-650 dC). Primero, se analiza la pintura mural del altar de Atetelco, distinguiendo seis íconos de números y un símbolo matemático empleados para computar cuentas de 104 años trópicos, y 72 y 7.300 ciclos sinódicos de Venus. Un segundo análisis muestra que ambas cuentas fueron usadas en obras de estilo teotihuacano mediante una iconografía distinta al sistema numérico de puntos y barras. Las fechas teotihuacanas pueden ser correlacionadas con los registros de la cuenta larga del área Maya, lo que nos permite datar los monumentos y artefactos arqueológicos mediante la iconografía. La evidencia muestra que los teotihuacanos midieron el tiempo a largo plazo plasmando las cuentas en complejas obras como parte de la institucionalización del registro del tiempo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Las escenas de los bajorrelieves del Templo Norte de Chichén Itzá han sido investigadas durante muchas décadas, y los estudiosos han coincidido en que ilustran el ritual de inauguración del nuevo rey o gobernante, quien atraviesa diversos desafíos y ordalías y quien se distingue por portar un turbante de serpiente. En este artículo ampliamos esta idea y argumentamos que la iconografía del Templo Norte muestra rituales particulares que también son descritos en una de las historias del Chilam Balam de Chumayel, que refiere a la entronización del famoso príncipe Hunac Ceel de Mayapán. Además, presentamos datos y consideraciones adicionales que nos llevan a proponer que Chichén Itzá, durante el período Postclásico temprano, tuvo un sistema de gobernanza dual jerarquizado, que más tarde continuó en Mayapán, sobreviviendo a la conquista española en el reino de Petén Itzá. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the presence or absence of an ideology of collectivity in the iconographic expression of polychrome pottery from Tepeticpac, the first settlement and active member of Tlaxcallan during the late Postclassic period (AD 1250–1519). We hypothesize based on the collective-action theory that there will be an absence of icons linked to particular nobles, rulers or individuals in these vessels, thereby promoting collective identity. We analyze materials recovered at various excavations in plazas, architectural compounds, terraces and temples. After evaluating the evidence, we conclude that polychrome pottery, far from privileging characters, individuals, or even a particular deity, displays a subject matter unregulated by political elites and centered on ideas of sacrifice, war, festivals, deities, noble hierarchy, and socioeconomic advantages gained through conquest, all themes and activities in which any individual, at any rank, could be involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two modified skulls from Pacbitun, Belize, one with a glyphic text, match ancient Maya depictions of trophies fashioned from war captives and worn by elite warriors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an archaeological excavation that was carried out by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture of Cuzco at the site of Espiritu Pampa, the last Inca refuge of Vilcabamba, 55 fragments of an extraordinary ceramic vessel were found. A very complex scene was painted on this piece. The scene illustrates the confrontation between the Spaniards and the indigenous population of the Andean area. Included in this scene are 39 humans and 57 animals, which we analyze carefully. In our iconographic analysis, we consider different elements represented in this scene, including weapons and garments. The scene is full of symbolism and visual metaphors represented by the animals and a persistent rainbow motif. By synthesizing each of the identified components and the symbolism they contain, we are able to demonstrate that the scene does not represent a specific belligerent event. Rather, it displays an Inca vision of a future in which the indigenous will gather under the Inca mandate and defeat the Spaniards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]