“Lamb’s objective was essentially to do Kon-Tiki in the Chiapan Rainforest. And he needed a lost city as a selling point.”
In 1950, American adventurers Dana and Ginger Lamb traveled to the jungles of northern Guatemala looking for Maya ruins and a story they could turn into a movie. There they encountered a rich cache of decorated structures made in the first millennium CE, including a particularly elaborate limestone lintel (a horizontal support above a doorway) carved by an artisan named Mayuy. Such objects had and continue to hold great historical, aesthetic, and spiritual significance for Maya people and descendants. Unfortunately, like many Maya ruins, the site has since been looted, and retracing the original locations of the displaced works is challenging.
In this episode, Stephen Houston, editor of A Maya Universe in Stone, explores the production and complex afterlives of these Maya objects. Houston contextualizes carved lintels within ancient Maya history and visual and spiritual practices, and discusses the fraught nature of their re-emergence in the twentieth century.
For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-the-life-and-afterlife-of-an-ancient-maya-carving
More to explore: Buy the book A Maya Universe in Stone here: https://shop.getty.edu/products/a-maya-universe-in-stone-978-1606067444
Recording Artists: Frida Kahlo
Trailer—Recording Artists Season 2
Art and Poetry: Recording Everyday Life
Art and Poetry: How to Witness the World
Art and Poetry: Connecting Stories at the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Cultural Heritage Under Attack: The United Nations and Uyghur China
Cultural Heritage Under Attack: Monuments and War Zones
Cultural Heritage Under Attack: Who Defines Heritage?
Mindfulness in the Museum: Art for Mental Wellbeing
Mindfulness in the Museum: Healing through Mindfulness
Mindfulness in the Museum: Lessons from a Meditation Guide
The Art of Gardening: California Native Plants
The Art of Gardening: Tomatomania!
The Art of Gardening: Storytelling with Plants at Disneyland
Reflecting on 25 Years of the Getty Center
Black Photographers Represent Their World
Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles
Uta Barth’s Atmospheric Photographs
Imagining the Afterlife through Ancient Vases
Damaged de Kooning on Display at Last
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
50 Tastes Of Gray
Dear Alice | Interior Design
Spider-Man Crawlspace Podcast
Pride and Prejudice
Pollyanna
The Magnus Archives
War Nerd Radio — Subscriber Feed