Enduring Literacies: The Emergence and Maturation of Writing Systems in Ancient Mesoamerica (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Enduring Literacies: The Emergence and Maturation of Writing Systems in Ancient Mesoamerica
Author: Michael D. Carrasco
Author: Joshua D. Englehardt
Abstract: During the Middle (900–400 BCE) to Late Formative (400 BCE–250 CE) periods in Mesoamerica, an eclectic array of scribal traditions emerged across the region. These writing systems seemingly developed from initial contact with an ancestral “Olmec” iconographic and script system, whose literary forms, representational conventions, themes, and narrative genres persisted within the visual rhetoric and poetics of later iconographic and writing traditions. In this paper, we critically explore a series of specific signs, conventions, and tropes related to ritual, sacrifice, fertility, and kingship that are alluded to in the earliest Middle Formative period inscriptions, such as that on the Cascajal Block. Through tracing the lineages of these visual elements and their associated themes across regional writing systems, such as those of the Zapotec, Maya, and Postclassic Central Mexican cultures, we attempt to better contextualize the enduring scribal, artistic, and literary genres that formed a fertile ground for the emergence of regional script traditions, thereby gaining a more robust understanding of the earliest manifestations of Mesoamerican writing and the paths that led the peoples of ancient Mesoamerica to adopt and adapt shared ideas to their own ends in a diversity of sophisticated writing systems.
Date: 10/22/2021
Primary URL: http://faculty-sgs.tama.ac.jp/terry/awll/WS/13/2021-HP.html
Conference Name: 13th AWLL International Workshop on Writing Systems and Literacy
The Tenaspi Egg: Ecology, Representation, and Conceptual Convergence in Olmec Art (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: The Tenaspi Egg: Ecology, Representation, and Conceptual Convergence in Olmec Art
Author: Joshua D. Englehardt
Author: Michael D. Carrasco
Abstract: Through the lens of “conceptual convergence,” we examine the multiple symbolic strands that inform specific Gulf Coast sculptural images, focusing especially on the Tenaxpi Egg/Homshuk sculpture. This sculpture, excavated on Tenaxpi Island in Lake Catemaco, shows a figure sculpted on an egg-shaped stone. This image likely references several stories from the region in which an old couple find an egg from which a boy emerges. Among the Zoque Popoluca of the Tuxltla Mountains of southern Veracruz, the boy is named Sintiopiltsin, “god-ear-of-corn.” This deity is the source and therefore precursor to actual maize, while at the same time being maize himself. After introducing this object, we examine the complex references that this image possibly presents. Specifically, we suggest that while maize is an important symbolic element, other metaphors drawn from diverse ecological systems played an equally significant role in this specific case, and in other Gulf Coast imagery. Through this example, we consider the fluidity of conflated or shared attributes within indigenous thought, in which myth, history, ideology, agriculture, and the environment are interwoven. We critically engage this framework by exploring theoretical and methodological issues associated with emic and etic conceptualizations of Formative Period artistic programs.
Date: 4/15/2021
Conference Name: 86th Annual Meeting, Society for American Archaeology
De Sellos a Estelas: Arte y Escrituras en la Mesoamérica Antigua. (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: De Sellos a Estelas: Arte y Escrituras en la Mesoamérica Antigua.
Abstract: En esta plática, pretendemos explorar los orígenes y desarrollo de la escritura en Mesoamérica antigua. Nuestra meta es contextualizar mejor las tradiciones Formativos y perdurables de arte y escritura que formaron un campo fértil para el surgimiento de escrituras regionales, así contribuyendo a una comprensión más robusta de los caminos que llevaron los pueblos de la Mesoamérica antigua a adoptar y adaptar idea compartidas para sus propios propósitos en una diversidad de sistemas de escritura sofisticados. La escritura es una tecnología única y distintivamente humana.
Author: Joshua D. Englehardt
Author: Michael D. Carrasco
Date: 10/24/2021
Location: Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico.