King and Cosmos: An Interpretation of the Aztec Calendar Stone
"King and Cosmos: An Interpretation of the Aztec Calendar Stone," by Professor David Stuart (Dept. of Art and Art History), focuses on one iconic artwork, the famous Calendar Stone of Tenochtitlan, but it has a broader purpose in highlighting the close interplay of writing and iconography in the visual culture of Postclassic Mexico. Such close connections may appear obvious on a certain level, but Stuart has long been struck by the lack of overlap in the study of Nahuatl writing on the one hand and Aztec art and iconography on the other.
Art historians who specialize in Aztec visual culture do not often venture into the nuances of Nahuatl language, or study the intricacies of hieroglyphic forms that have for so long been dismissed as “merely pictographic.” The opposite is true, too: those who study Nahuatl hieroglyphs tend to restrict themselves to the fine points of sign composition and spelling conventions. In reality, the art and writing of Central Mexico, as elsewhere in Mesoamerica, are two overlapping categories, separate in many ways but fully integrated into a large visual system. Stuart firmly believes that to study one requires expertise in the other.
David Stuart is the David and Linda Schele Professor of Mesoamerican Art and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD in Anthropology from Vanderbilt University in 1995 and taught at Harvard University for eleven years before arriving at UT Austin in 2004, where he now teaches in the Department of Art and Art History. His interests in the traditional cultures of Mesoamerica are wide-ranging, but his primary research focuses is the archaeology and epigraphy of ancient Maya civilization, and for the past three decades he has been very active in the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing. Over the past two decades his major research has centered on the art and epigraphy at Copán (Honduras), Palenque (Mexico), Piedras Negras, La Corona, and San Bartolo (Guatemala). Stuart’s early work on the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs led to a MacArthur Fellowship (1984-1989). His books include Palenque: Eternal City of the Maya (Thames and Hudson), and, most recently, The Order of Days (Random House), a popular account of ancient Maya calendars and cosmology. Stuart is currently the director of The Mesoamerica Center at UT Austin.
David Carballo is a specialist in Mesoamerican archaeology, focusing particularly on the prehispanic civilizations of central Mexico. Currently ongoing projects at the ancient city of Teotihuacan include the Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga, Teotihuacan (PATT), and the Proyecto Plaza de las Columnas. The first seeks to understand urbanization, neighborhood organization, and the daily life of commoners through excavations and geophysical prospection within a southern district of the city. The second is focused on a palace compounds and is aimed at understanding the city’s political economy.