Painted Metaphors: Pottery and Politics of the Ancient Maya
A New Exhibit Opens at Penn Museum
A new traveling exhibition opens today at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: Painted Metaphors: Pottery and Politics of the Ancient Maya.
I had the opportunity to preview this exhibit last Monday and I really loved it -- I have a long-standing interest in the ancient Maya, their glyphs and drawings, so this collection, scheduled to be on display until January 31, 2010, intrigued me.
Focusing on ordinary people and their daily lives, the exhibit showcases the famous Chama painted pottery excavated nearly a century ago by the University of Pennsylvania.
Newly reinterpreted in light of recent research in the field, the pottery, which forms the centerpiece of the Painted Metaphors exhibit, yields new clues to understanding the everyday life -- and changing politics -- of the ancient Maya of Guatemala 1,300 years ago.
The almost two dozen recently conserved Maya painted vessels come from Chama, a Maya village in the highlands far from the more sophisticated lowland centers of Maya culture. Discovered by Penn Museum archaeologist Robert Burkitt, this vibrant painted pottery is unlike anything else the region ever produced.
Why is that, I wondered? Exhibition Curator Dr. Elin Danien, Research Associate at the Penn Museum, suggests these are "painted metaphors", or pictorial narratives, reflecting the sudden introduction of people and ideas from the Maya lowlands. Interesting.
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