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Classic Maya Language
Classic Maya (or properly Classical Chʼoltiʼ) is the oldest historically attested member of the Mayan language family. It is the main language documented in the pre-Columbian inscriptions of the classical period of the Maya civilization. It is also the common ancestor of the Cholan branch of the Mayan language family. Contemporary descendants of classical Maya include Chʼol and Chʼortiʼ. Speakers of these languages can understand many Classic Mayan words. Classic Maya is quite a morphologically binding language, and most words in the language consist of multiple morphemes with relatively little irregularity. It shows some regional and temporal variations, which is completely normal considering the long period of use of the language. Even so, the texts make it clear that it is a single, uniform language. Classical Maya shows ergative alignment in its morphology, as well as syntactically in focus constructs. Although the descendant Cholan languages limit this pattern of e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Lowlands
The Maya Lowlands are the largest cultural and geographic, first order subdivision of the Maya Region, located in eastern Mesoamerica. Extent The Maya Lowlands are restricted by the Gulf of Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Maya Highlands to the south and west. The precise northern and eastern limits of the Lowlands are widely agreed upon, being formed by conspicuous bodies of water. Their southern and western limits, however, are not precisely fixed, as these are restricted by 'subtle environmental changes or transitions from one zone he Highlandsto another he Lowlands' rather than conspicuous geographic features. The Lowlands fully encompass Belize, the Guatemalan department of Peten, and the Mexican states of Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo. They may further partially encompass a number of northerly Guatemalan departments, northwesterly Honduran departments, and southeasterly Mexican states. Divisions The Lowlands are usually subd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigraphy
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the writing and the writers. Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literature, literary composition. A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an ''epigrapher'' or ''epigraphist''. For example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and finding any relevant circumstances. It is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practised by the same person. Epigraphy is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guatemalan Highlands
The Guatemalan Highlands is an upland region in southern Guatemala which lies between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas to the south and the Petén lowlands to the north. Geographic description The Highlands lie between 6360 ft and 13780 ft and are made up of a series of high valleys enclosed by mountains. There are volcanoes which are both active and extinct. The local name for the region is ''Altos,'' meaning "highlands." The relief of the mountainous country which is north of the Highlands and drains into the Atlantic is varied by terraces, ridges, and underfalls. Its general configuration is compared by E. Reclus to the appearance of "a stormy sea breaking into parallel billows".''Universal Geography'', ed. E. G. Ravenstein, div. xxxiii., p. 212 A range called the Sierra de Chamá travels eastward towards Belize and is connected by low hills with the Cockscomb Mountains. The Sierra de Santa Cruz, a similar range, continues east to Cape Cocoli between the Polochic and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yucatec Maya Language
Yucatec Maya ( ; referred to by its speakers as or ) is a Mayan languages, Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula, including part of northern Belize. There is also a significant diasporic community of Yucatec Maya speakers in San Francisco, though most Maya Americans are speakers of other Mayan languages from Guatemala and Chiapas. Etymology According to the Hocabá dictionary, compiled by American anthropologist Victoria Bricker, there is a variant name , literally 'flat speech'). A popular, yet false, alternative etymology of Mayab is ''ma ya'ab'' or 'not many, the few', which derives from New Age spiritualist interpretations of the Maya. The use of "Mayab" as the name of the language seems to be unique to the town of Hocabá Municipality, Hocabá, as indicated by the Hocabá dictionary and is not employed elsewhere in the region or in Mexico, by either Spanish or Maya speakers. As used in Hocabá, "Mayab" is not the recognized name of the language, but instead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lingua Franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a First language, native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages. Linguae francae have developed around the world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages" facilitated trade), but also for cultural, religious, diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term is taken from the medieval Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a Romance languages, Romance-based pidgin language used especially by traders in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Current Anthropology
''Current Anthropology'' is a peer-reviewed anthropology academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press for the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Founded in 1959 by the anthropologist Sol Tax1907-1995. ''Current Anthropology'' is one of very few journals that publishes research across all sub-disciplines of anthropology, encompassing the full range of anthropological scholarship on human cultures and on human and other primate species. Communicating across the subfields, the journal features papers in a wide variety of areas, including social, cultural, physical and linguistic anthropology as well as ethnology, ethnohistory, archaeology, prehistory and folklore. Laurence Ralph (Princeton University) replaced Mark Aldenderfer (University of California, Merced) as the editor-in-chief of the journal on January 1, 2019. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2021 impact factor of 3.226, ranking it 10th out of 93 journals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Priesthood
Until the discovery that Maya stelae depicted kings instead of high priests, the Maya priesthood and their preoccupations had been a main scholarly concern. In the course of the 1960s and over the following decades, however, dynastic research came to dominate interest in the subject. A concept of royal ʼshamanismʼ, chiefly propounded by Linda Schele and Freidel, came to occupy the forefront instead. Yet, Classic Maya civilization, being highly ritualistic, would have been unthinkable without a developed priesthood. Like other Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican priesthoods, the early Maya priesthood consisted of a hierarchy of professional priests serving as intermediaries between the population and the deities. Their basic skill was the art of reading and writing. The priesthood as a whole was the keeper of knowledge concerning the deities and their cult, including calendrics, astrology, divination, and prophecy. In addition, they were experts in historiography and genealogy. Priests ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-Classic
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE – 250 CE), the Classic (250–900 CE), and the Postclassic (); as well as the post European contact Colonial Period (1521–1821), and Postcolonial, or the period after independence from Spain (1821–present). The periodisation of Mesoamerica by researchers is based on archaeological, ethnohistorical, and modern cultural anthropology research dating to the early twentieth century. Archaeologists, ethnohistorians, historians, and cultural anthropologists continue to work to develop cultural histories of the region. Overview Paleo-Indian period 18000–8000 BCE The Paleo-Indian (less frequently, '' Lithic'') period or era is that which spans from the first signs of human presence in the region, which many believe to have happene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Usumacinta River
The Usumacinta River (; named after the howler monkey) is a river in southeastern Mexico and northwestern Guatemala. It is formed by the junction of the Pasión River, which arises in the Sierra de Santa Cruz (in Guatemala) and the Salinas River, also known as the Rio Chixoy, or the Rio Negro, which descends from the Sierra Madre de Guatemala. It defines part of the border between Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas, then continues its northwesterly course, meandering through the Mexican state of Tabasco to the Gulf of Mexico. The Usumacinta River enters Mexican territory in the state of Tabasco and across the Cañón del Usumacinta (Usumacinta Canyon) ecological reserve, forming impressive canyons along its route. Passing the canyon called ''"Boca del Cerro",'' Tenosique, the Usumacinta goes into the plain of Tabasco. Two distributaries, the Palizada River and San Pedro y San Pablo River, branch from the main stem of the Usumacinta and empty north and east in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petén Basin
The Petén Basin is a geographical subregion of the Maya Lowlands, primarily located in northern Guatemala within the Department of El Petén, and into the state of Campeche in southeastern Mexico. During the Late Preclassic and Classic periods of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology many major centers of the Maya civilization flourished, such as Tikal and Calakmul. A distinctive Petén-style of Maya architecture and inscriptions arose. The archaeological sites La Sufricaya and Holmul are also located in this region. History By the first half of the 1st millennium BCE, the Petén and Mirador Basin of this region were already well-established with a number of monumental sites and cities of the Maya civilization. Significant Maya sites of this Preclassic era of Mesoamerican chronology include Nakbé, El Mirador, Naachtun, San Bartolo and Cival in the Mirador Basin. Classic Period Later, Petén became the heartland of the Maya Classic Period (c. 200 – 900 CE). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chiapas
Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises Municipalities of Chiapas, 124 municipalities and its capital and largest city is Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Other important population centers in Chiapas include Ocosingo, Tapachula, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán, and Arriaga, Chiapas, Arriaga. Chiapas is the southernmost state in Mexico, and it borders the states of Oaxaca to the west, Veracruz to the northwest, and Tabasco to the north, and the Petén Department, Petén, Quiché Department, Quiché, Huehuetenango Department, Huehuetenango, and San Marcos Department, San Marcos departments of Guatemala to the east and southeast. Chiapas has a significant coastline on the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. In general, Chiapas has a humid, tropical climate. In the northern area bordering Tabasco, near Teapa Municipality, Teapa, rainfall can average more than pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula ( , ; ) is a large peninsula in southeast Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west of the peninsula from the Caribbean Sea to the east. The Yucatán Channel, between the northeastern corner of the peninsula and Cuba, connects the two bodies of water. The peninsula is approximately in area. It has low relief and is almost entirely composed of porous limestone. The peninsula lies east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrowest point in Mexico separating the Atlantic Ocean, including the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, from the Pacific Ocean. Some consider the isthmus to be the geography, geographic boundary between Central America and the rest of North America, placing the peninsula in Central America. Politically, all of Mexico, including the Yucatán, is generally considered part of North America, while Guatemala and Belize are considered pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
