Charles E. Dibble (18 August 1909 – 30 November 2002) was an American academic,
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
,
linguist, and scholar of
pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. A former
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Utah, Dibble retired in 1978 after an association with the university as lecturer and researcher spanning four decades. Post-retirement Dibble continued to conduct and publish research in his area of expertise, studies of
Mesoamerican historical literature and the
historiography of
conquest-era Mesoamerican cultures, in particular those of the
Aztec and others of the
central Mexican ''altiplano''. Among many contributions to the field Dibble is perhaps most recognised for his collaboration with colleague
Arthur J.O. Anderson
Arthur James Outram Anderson (November 26, 1907 – June 3, 1996) was an American anthropologist specializing in Aztec culture and translator of the Nahuatl language.
Early life
He was born on November 26, 1907.
In the 1970s he began working wi ...
, producing the modern annotated translation into English of the volumes of the
Florentine Codex.
Born in
Layton, Utah, Dibble attended the University of Utah, obtaining a
B.A. in history in 1936. Dibble traveled to
Mexico in the year preceding his graduation, and his experiences there shaped the direction of his future career as a Mesoamericanist scholar. Dibble enrolled at the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in
Mexico City for
postgraduate studies, completing a
Master's degree in anthropology in 1938. Upon receiving his MA Dibble gained a teaching position at his ''
alma mater'' in Utah commencing in 1939, where he would be based for the remainder of his long academic career. At the same time he pursued his doctoral studies at UNAM, and was awarded his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
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** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
from UNAM in 1942. Dibble also undertook a year's post-doctoral work at
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, in 1943. In 1994, a
festschrift entitled ''Chipping away on earth: studies in prehispanic and colonial Mexico in honor of Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble''
[Eloise Quinones Keber, editor with the assistance of Susan Schroeder and Frederic Hicks, 1994: Lancaster CA, Labyrinthos.] was published.
Notes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dibble, Charles E.
American Mesoamericanists
Historians of Mesoamerica
Mesoamerican anthropologists
Mesoamerican epigraphers
Aztec scholars
Translators from Nahuatl
Translators to English
University of Utah alumni
National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni
Harvard University alumni
University of Utah faculty
People from Layton, Utah
1909 births
2002 deaths
20th-century Mesoamericanists
20th-century translators
20th-century American anthropologists