“Light in Darkness: Illuminating the Classic Maya World”

Thursday, March 18, 2021 The event started -1105 days ago

7:30 PM

Online

Zoom

Dr. Nancy Gonlin, Bellevue College

“Light in Darkness: Illuminating the Classic Maya World”

Zoom Webinar and socially distanced viewing of webinar at Innerspace Brewing, 2414 Clinton Avenue West, Huntsville, Alabama 35805

Please click the link below to join the webinar: https://uah-uasystem.zoom.us/j/99227765814

For information, Lillian Joyce at joycel@uah.edu

Bio: Nancy Gonlin is a Mesoamerican archaeologist who studies ancient Maya commoners and their daily and nightly lives. Gonlin earned a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University and teaches at Bellevue College in the Anthropology Department. She co-edited Archaeology of the Night: Life After Dark in the Ancient World (with April Nowell), Human Adaptation in Ancient Mesoamerica: Empirical Approaches to Mesoamerican Archaeology (with Kirk D. French), Ancient Households of the Americas: Conceptualizing What Households Do (with John G. Douglass), and Commoner Ritual and Ideology in Ancient Mesoamerica (with Jon C. Lohse). She also co-authored Copan: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Maya Kingdom (with Ann Corinne Freter and David Webster). Gonlin is the associate editor of Ancient Mesoamerica and the editor of the Journal of Archaeology and Education. Watch her TEDx talk: “Life After Dark in the Ancient World.” 

Lecture summary: Long before the advent of electricity, ancient peoples created devices to illuminate the darkness. In what ways did the ancient Maya light up the night and illuminate dark places? The answer to these questions lie in numerous sources: the archaeological record, from the remains of palaces to humble houses; the hieroglyphs in which the Maya wrote about their world, the rich iconography on pottery, stone carvings, and other media that depict dark doings, ethnohistoric observations of chroniclers and priests, comparative materials from ethnographically-studied contemporary Maya groups, and from modern-day Maya peoples themselves. Dr. Gonlin will address whether ancient cities were lit at night, variation in lighting from city to countryside, status differences in illumination, and the role of bioluminescent insects in adding glow to the dark. 


Details

Category
Arts & Entertainment
department
Art Art History and Design, College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, History
Audience
Public, Students, Faculty and Staff, Alumni

Contact

Dr. Lillian Joyce This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Venue

More Dates

  SHARE