February 11, 2023 Professor Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos: “Lost and Found: The Collection of the First National Museum of Guatemala.”
During its ephemeral existence (1866-1881), the first National Museum of Guatemala housed a small but important archaeological collection, which included some outstanding objects. The contents of the collection, the circumstances that led to its dispersal, and the present whereabouts of the objects have remained virtually unknown, except for scattered mentions and illustrations of a few items in travelers’ accounts. In this talk, I tracked down the collection and identified objects that originally belonged to it, now housed at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Field Museum, Chicago. I highlighted the cultural and political circumstances that resulted in the museum’s demise and the dispersion of its incipient collection.
Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department at Yale University. His research interests include Mesoamerican art, religion, and writing, ancient urbanism and social complexity with special focus on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, and the history of archaeology in Guatemala. In 2011, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on Cotzumalhuapa art and archaeology. Author of Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya (2017), Imágenes de la Mitología Maya (2011), Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 10, Part 1: Cotzumalhuapa (2017), and Cotzumalguapa, la Ciudad Arqueológica: El Baúl-Bilbao-El Castillo (2012).
A recorded version for Members only is available at Meeting Archives.