Keeping Abreast of the Maya

This paper discusses the importance of female breasts in gender construction in Maya art and explains artistic conventions and choices in their deployment. The visual analysis focuses on Late Classic pictorial vases and ceramic figurines. Rather than reflecting a natural body, the female breast was filtered through a cultural lens that drove its highly conceptual rendering in Maya art, mirrored in a breast hieroglyph. Through the principle of contrast, including morphology and absence vs. presence of breasts in specific pictorial contexts, Maya artists constructed female personae varying in age, class, supernatural status, and gender ambiguity. In order to flesh out the layered meaning of the breast, the paper turns to ethnographic studies of modern Maya medicine concerning the hot-cold system. It is argued that ethnographic data on women's bodies in medical discourse shed light on how the breast served as an index of age-based female stereotypes

Aesthetics · Ambiguity · Archaeology · Art · Ethnography · Linguistics · Literature · Maya · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Philosophy

• The “Copulating Couple” at Naj Tunich

  Open Access•James E Brady•Archaeological Discovery•2025

  Incluir item

• Metalworking at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico

  Open Access•E H Paris, Elizabeth Baquedano et al.•Ancient Mesoamerica•2023

  Incluir item

• Images from the Underworld

  Andrea J Stone, Andrea Stone•Images from the Underworld•1995

  Incluir item

• Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica

  R A Joyce•Gender and Power in Prehispanic…•2001

  Incluir item

• The blood of kings

  Linda Schele, Mary Ellen Miller•The blood of kings•1986

  Incluir item

• Embodiment and experience

  Thomas J Csordas•Embodiment and experience•1994

  Incluir item

• Referential practice

  William F Hanks•Referential practice•1990

  Incluir item

• Book of the gods and rites and The ancient calendar.

  Diego Duran•Book of the gods and rites and…•1971

  Incluir item

• The Memory of Bones

  Houston, Stephen Houston et al.•Memory of Bones•2006

  Incluir item

• Maya Saints and Souls in a Changing World

  John M Watanabe•Maya Saints and Souls in a…•1992

  Incluir item

• Hippocrates' Latin American Legacy

  H R Harvey, George M Foster•Hispanic American Historical Review•1995

  Incluir item

• A Companion to Social Archaeology

  Open Access•L Meskell, Robert W Preucel•Companion to Social Archaeology•2007

  Incluir item

• The Human Body and Ideology

  Kevin Gosner•Hispanic American Historical Review•1989

  Incluir item

• Gender Trouble

  Judith Butler•Gender Trouble•2011

  Incluir item

• The Chorti Indians of Guatemala

  Ralph L Beals, Charles Wisdom•The American Historical Review•1941

  Incluir item

• Archaeologies of Sexuality

  Robert A Schmidt, Barbara L Vo et al.•Archaeologies of Sexuality•2005

  Incluir item

• The Maya Book of the Dead

  Carolyn Tate, Francis Robicsek•African Arts•1984

  Incluir item

• The Blood of Kings. Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art

  John Lunsford•African Arts•1986

  Incluir item

• The Human Body and Ideology

  Open Access•Brad R Huber•Latin American Anthropology Review•1990

  Incluir item

• An Archaeology of the Senses

  Open Access•Houston, Stephen Houston et al.•Cambridge Archaeological Journal•2000

  Incluir item

• The Devil and the Skirt

  Open Access•Cecelia F Klein•Ancient Mesoamerica•2000

  Incluir item

• The Conquered Women of Cacaxtla

  Open Access•Sharisse D Mccafferty, Sharisse Mccafferty et al.•Ancient Mesoamerica•1994

  Incluir item

• Heritage of Conquest

  Charles P Loomis, Sol Tax•American Sociological Review•1952

  Incluir item

• Faience goddesses and ivory bull-leapers

  Benjamin Alberti•World Archaeology•2001

  Incluir item

• Un análisis de las creencias y prácticas médicas en un pueblo indígena de Guatemala

  Open Access•Richard N Adams•Revista Mexicana de Sociología•1953

  Incluir item

• The Chorti Indians of Guatemala

  Ralph L Roys, Charles Wisdom•Hispanic American Historical Review•1941

  Incluir item

• The Folk Culture of Yucatan

  R Redfield•Journal of Educational Sociology•1943

  Incluir item

• Women, Culture and Society

  Rosemary F S Bahr, Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo et al.•Journal of Marriage and the Family•1975

  Incluir item

• Hippocrates' Latin American Legacy

  Ellen Messer, George M Foster•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1996

  Incluir item

• The Role of Gender in Precolumbian Art and Architecture

  Penelope Harvey, Virginia E Miller•Man•1989

  Incluir item

• Dealing with Inequality

  Rena Lederman, M Strathern•Man•1990

  Incluir item

• The Mindful Body

  Open Access•Nancy Scheper‐hughe, Nancy Scheper‐Hughes et al.•Medical Anthropology Quarterly•1987

  Incluir item

• The Maya midwife as sacred specialist

  Open Access•Lois Paul, Benjamin D Paul•American Ethnologist•1975

  Incluir item

• Archaeology of the Body

  R A Joyce•Annual Review of Anthropology•2005

  Incluir item