Unearthing the Maya Exhibit and Program Celebrate New Collection
El Castillo temple at Chichén Itzá in 1889
Father and son archaeologists George and David Stuart will appear in a program to mark the opening of an exhibit on the history of research about Maya civilization and culture. "Unearthing the Maya: Highlights of the Stuart Collection," on exhibit Jan. 18 through March 31, will showcase nearly seventy rare books, photographs, and manuscripts in UNC's Wilson Library.
George and Melinda Stuart and their Boundary End Archaeological Research Center near Asheville, N.C., gave their collection of 13,000 items about archaeology, anthropology, and Maya and Mesoamerican studies to the library in 2006. George Stuart compiled the collection during his long career as a field archaeologist, then as senior assistant editor for National Geographic magazine and vice president for research and exploration at the National Geographic Society. Stuart, who retired from National Geographic in 1998, received a Ph.D. in anthropology from UNC in 1975 and was honored in 2006 with a UNC Distinguished Alumnus citation.
The exhibit will open on Thursday, Jan. 18 at 5:45 p.m. with a program in Wilson Library featuring Stuart in discussion with his son David. David Stuart holds the Linda and David Schele Chair in the Art and Writing of Mesoamerica at the University of Texas at Austin. He won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984 for his work deciphering Maya hieroglyphs. Norman Hammond, chair of the department of archaeology at Boston University, will moderate the discussion about the Stuarts' work and how the process of collecting has influenced their scholarship. The event and exhibit are free and open to the public.
British archeologist Alfred P. Maudslay in
his camp at the ruins of Chichén Itzá, 1889
Steponaitis said the quality of the collections will quickly put UNC in the same league as Harvard, Yale, and Tulane Universities for documentary materials on Maya and Mesoamerican anthropology and archaeology. He also said that the collection is just as strong and extraordinary in the archaeology of the American South and will contribute to UNC's well-regarded academic programs in that area.
"Unearthing the Maya" will rely heavily on visual elements to explore evolving views of Maya civilization, said Sarah Fass of the library's Rare Book Collection and curator of the exhibit. Highlights will include images that represent both "accurate and inaccurate" representations of Maya ruins and artifacts, from the often unreliable observations of early European explorers to more recent scholarly perspectives.
An exhibit about Maya civilization is timely, Fass said. Exhibits such as one in 2006 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City have drawn large crowds. Copán, Palenque, Tikal and Chichén Itzá-sites in Mexico and Central America-are popular destinations for tourists exploring Maya ruins. And just in time for Oscar nomination buzz, Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" presents a violent characterization of Maya society.
Some notable pieces in the Wilson Library exhibit include:
In addition to the opening program, George Stuart will host a free public gallery talk on Friday, Jan. 19 at 11 a.m. in the Wilson Library, during which he will speak about some of the items on exhibit.
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