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An Affiliate of the Miami Science Museum

JANUARY 2009 SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
 

All meetings are held at the Miami Science Museum,
3280 South Miami Avenue across from Vizcaya.
A $6.00 donation is requested for nonmembers.
 

DATE, EVENT AND PROGRAM
 

Jocote Marañón, Anacardium occidentale (Cashew) Chris Rollins in Belize holding two fine examples of Soursop, Annona muricata

 

Wednesday, January 14, 2009 
IMS Presentation
(Museum Classroom)
8 PM – 9:30 PM

“Fruits of the Maya” with Chris B. Rollins Director of the Fruit & Spice Park in Homestead Redland and founder of Tropical Fruit Growers of South Florida, Inc.

Every Maya household had its own kitchen garden in which vegetables and fruit trees were raised, and fruit groves were scattered near settlements as well. Papaya, avocado, custard apple, sapodilla, guava, cacao, and the breadnut tree were all cultivated, but many kinds of wild fruits were also eaten. Chris will bring along some tasty samples. When not eaten plain, fruits were often made into intoxicating beverages used in ceremonies and rituals.

Throne 1 from the site of Piedras Negra, in the National Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Guatemala City. Photo by Rick Slazyk, AIA, NCARB. Artistic rendering of Piedras Negras by Tatiana Proskouriakoff. Stucco mask and a fallen stela in front of Structure K5. Image courtesy of Bill Lieberman. An example of a corbelled vault doorway atop the main acropolis at Piedras Negras. Photo by Katherine Morales.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 
IMS Presentation
(Museum Auditorium)
8 PM – 9:30 PM

“By the River and Into the Jungle: Unraveling the Secrets of Piedras Negras – the City of Black Stones” with IMS President Marta Barber

More than a century after it was first reported by travelers to the world of the Maya, the site of Piedras Negras, on the Guatemala side of the Usumacinta River, continues to be an enigma to archaeologists and Mayanists in general. The large site remains covered by the dense jungle despite intense work by the University of Pennsylvania in the 1930s, directed by Linton Satherthwaite, and more recently by Stephen Houston of Brigham Young University and Hector Escobedo of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.

 Despite their work, Piedras Negras is mostly associated with Tatiana Proskouriakoff, the Russian-American scholar whose drawings and plan of the site still are considered essential to the study of the place. Piedras Negras stands preeminent among Maya cities in artistic sculpture. Its carved stelae, apparently erected every five years, is the most complete in the Maya region. Get an in-depth report by Marta Barber on the site recently visited by IMS members to try to comprehend why is it so important and why it still remains so mysterious.