David Stuart
David Stuart's research focuses on the archaeology, art and epigraphy of Mesoamerica, especially ancient Maya civilization. He is the Schele Professor of Mesoamerican Art and Writing in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. Stuart received his Ph.D in Anthropology from Vanderbilt University in 1995, and was Senior Lecturer in Harvard University's Department of Anthropology from 1993 to 2004.
Stuart's early work in Maya decipherment led to a MacArthur Fellowship from 1984-89. In 2011 he was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Stuart's early research and contributions to Maya studies were featured in the award-winning documentary "Cracking the Maya Code" (NightFire Films, 2008).
Stuart regularly conducts field research at archaeological sites in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, focusing on the documentation and decipherment of Maya art and hieroglyphic inscriptions. His recent research centers on the art and epigraphy at Copan (Honduras), Palenque (Mexico), La Corona, Xultun and San Bartolo (Guatemala). He is currently working on an overview of Maya-Teotihuacan relations from a historical perspective.
In addition to his role on the faculty at UT, Stuart oversees the Mesoamerica Center, which fosters multi-disciplinary studies on ancient American art and culture. He is also Director of Casa Herrera, UT's research center in Antigua, Guatemala, devoted to the archaeology Mesoamerica and to fostering interaction among international scholars and students.
Phone: 512-232-2363
Address: Department of Art and Art History
1 University Station D1300
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712
Stuart's early work in Maya decipherment led to a MacArthur Fellowship from 1984-89. In 2011 he was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Stuart's early research and contributions to Maya studies were featured in the award-winning documentary "Cracking the Maya Code" (NightFire Films, 2008).
Stuart regularly conducts field research at archaeological sites in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, focusing on the documentation and decipherment of Maya art and hieroglyphic inscriptions. His recent research centers on the art and epigraphy at Copan (Honduras), Palenque (Mexico), La Corona, Xultun and San Bartolo (Guatemala). He is currently working on an overview of Maya-Teotihuacan relations from a historical perspective.
In addition to his role on the faculty at UT, Stuart oversees the Mesoamerica Center, which fosters multi-disciplinary studies on ancient American art and culture. He is also Director of Casa Herrera, UT's research center in Antigua, Guatemala, devoted to the archaeology Mesoamerica and to fostering interaction among international scholars and students.
Phone: 512-232-2363
Address: Department of Art and Art History
1 University Station D1300
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712
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Books by David Stuart
The first written presentation of the evidence for painter and sculptor signatures in ancient Maya art, which Stuart had earlier identified in the summer of 1986.
Papers by David Stuart
The first written presentation of the evidence for painter and sculptor signatures in ancient Maya art, which Stuart had earlier identified in the summer of 1986.
https://mayadecipherment.com/2020/06/05/a-new-variant-of-the-syllable-ko-in-maya-writing/
- DS
Recently, Alfonso Lacadena (2005) has argued that the syllabary's core elements may have been borrowed from an earlier writing system, perhaps one used to record a Mixe-Zoquean language. This proposal remains somewhat uncertain, for the early writing system in question has yet to be documented, yet there remain strong reasons to suspect that a significant portion of the earliest Maya syllabic signs do indeed have a non-Mayan origin. For one thing, as Lacadena (2005) has noted, several visually-related syllables all lack Mayan etymologies and are thus particularly good candidates for loan signs, perhaps from a Mixe- Zoquean continuum. For another, several iconically-transparent signs—such as the a ‘parrot’, e ‘toad’ and u ‘shark’—cannot presently be explained by recourse to either Mayan or Mixe-Zoquean linguistic resources. Potentially, these signs and others like them were derived from some as-yet-unidentified earlier culture speaking a different, non-Mayan language.
Nonetheless, numerous new signs were added over the centuries (see Grube 1989), initially via the acrophonic reduction of Maya word signs (see Campbell 1984)—explaining the production of syllables like ch’o and k’u from earlier word signs like CH’O’ ‘rat’ and K’U’ ‘nest’. Later, documented sound changes in the Classic Mayan language seem to have resulted in the abbreviation of still other Classic Mayan word signs into phonetic syllables. Perhaps the best attested changes are the loss of vowel length and the reduction of the h/j contrast at about A.D. 750, which seem to have led directly to the reduction of word signs like BAAH ‘gopher’ and TAJ ‘torch’ to the phonetic signs ba and ta.
In this hands-on workshop, students will use select Preclassic, Early Classic and Late Classic Maya texts, as well as dictionaries of Mayan and non-Mayan languages, to explore the origins and development of the Classic Maya syllabary.
Co-authors: Stephanie M. Strauss and Elliot Lopez-Finn
Presented at the 2017 Mesoamerica Meetings, UT Austin, Austin, Texas
This talk looks at the narrative structures of the wooden lintels in two of Tikal's major temples, proposing that they were placed in their original setting above or in proximity to the captured effigies of foreign deities (Yamanajaw and Waxaklajuun Ubaah Chan in Temple I, and the patron deities of El Peru and Naranjo in Temple IV). While the physical effigies were likely place within the small confines of the structures, the narratives also emphasize the Tikal rulers' ritual ability to embody or "impersonate" these deities. I argue that the lofty temples were settings for the display and presentation of the deities and/or the victorious deified rulers, and Temple IV at least may have been intentionally built too be oriented directly toward Tikal's enemy, Naranjo, to the east.
This was the first presentation of evidence pointing to the recently documented ruins of La Corona as "Site Q," the source of numerous sculptures looted in the 1960s. This was based on studies conducted at La Corona ("Lo Veremos") by Graham and Stuart in 1997.
The term chan ch'en, " sky-and-cave, " plays an important but still somewhat misunderstood role in the ritual language of the Classic Maya. It was first identified by me and Steve Houston back in the 1990s as having a very close association with place names. Today, I see chan ch'en as a complimentary opposition that describes a particular sacred place, a ceremonial focal point within a community or on the natural landscape, understood to be an intersection of what is above the earth and what is below. It defines the moveable concept of a universal center or a nexus. It many respects it is can be thought as an type of axis mundi or cosmic pivot-point. In this paper I explain this concept as it particularly relates to the Cross Group of Palenque, arguing that it was a prominent chan ch'een oriented to the spring of Lakamha' (Otolum) and the nearly El Mirador mountain.
Landscape features such as caves, cenotes, mountains, even ceiba trees were natural physical indicators of these locations, and therefore of great religious significance. Pyramids and plazas, as artificial landscapes, were designed and even sited according to the same concept, for they were representations and markers of these same spatial, cosmic intersections. And there were many chan ch'en locales large and small at any given time, even within a single community, suggesting a notion of "multi-place" or "multi-verse" in terms of ceremonial practice.
Classic Maya conceptions of space also involved the idea of kab ch'een, "earth-and-cave" , which referred to " town, community " or more generally, lived space. The term is also a complementary opposition that encompasses the ground or earth (kab) and the earth's interior. As we have known for some time, kab ch'een may be reducible to ch'een, " cave, " the symbolic and natural center of a community. The two terms are separate but complementary domains, or dimensions, of a collective expression, the rare triadic compound, chan kab ch'een, that of course refers to the three horizontal levels of Mesoamerican space. One part, chan ch'een, refers to ritual location while the other refers to lived space. This triadic term then becomes expressed in a variety of ways, most effectively perhaps in the Cross Group of Palenque, where each temple is an explicit expression of each of these spaces (Cross = sky, Foliated Cross = fertile earth, Sun = cave). I suspect that these served as a template too for the Triadic architectural patterns we find of the Late Preclassic -- not the "hearthstones" model that has been dominant in interpreting such layouts since the 1990s. In general, I propose that Maya spatial concepts involved an interplay of two binary " systems " that become integrated and unified as a overarching triadic concept.
Resumen: El artículo presenta la Estela 30 de Xultun, descubierta en 2016 en el sitio arqueológico de Xultun, Guatemala. Se relaciona brevemente el contexto arqueológico del fragmento de la estela, y se proporciona un análisis textual del pasaje tallado del fragmento. Este pasaje textual revela una reina previamente desconocida como un agente importante en la historia de la ciudad Xultun durante la época Clásico Tardío.
Zusammenfassung: Dieser Artikel präsentiert Xultun Stela 30, ein Fragment mit einem erhaltenen Hieroglyphentext, das 2016 in der archäologischen Stätte Xultun, Guatemala, entdeckt wurde. Der Artikel beschreibt kurz den archäologischen Kontext dieses Fundes, bevor er eine Analyse der erhaltenen Textpassage liefert. Diese Passage enthüllt den Namen einer bisher unbekannten Königin von Xultun, die eine wichtige Rolle in der spätklassichen Geschichte der Stadt spielte.