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41-595: The pre-Columbian archaeological site of Izapa lies along the river. This article related to a river in Mexico is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a location in the Mexican state of Chiapas is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to a river in Guatemala is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Izapa Izapa

82-639: A CIA case officer and as a part of a front organization, Western Enterprises in Taiwan , as part of efforts to counter the influence of the Mao Zedong regime in China. Coe's graduate advisor was Gordon Willey . In his Harvard dissertation at La Victoria, Guatemala, he established the first secure chronology of ceramics for southern Mesoamerica. With Richard Diehl at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán , he used new magnetometry techniques to locate and salvage most of

123-781: A connective link between the Olmec and the early Maya . He supports his argument with the large amount of Olmec style motifs used in Izapan art , including jaguar motifs , downturned human mouths, St. Andrew's Cross, flame eyebrows, scrolling skies and clouds, and baby-face figurines . Also used to support Coe's hypothesis are elements in Maya culture thought to be derived from the Izapans, including similarities in art and architecture styles, continuity between Maya and Izapan monuments , and shared deities . Other archaeologists argue that there

164-426: A definitive work on Izapa sculpture, proposes instead that the monuments were intentionally language-free and that "Izapa's position at the juncture of two linguistic regions [i.e. Mixe–Zoque and Maya ] may have fostered the penchant for non-verbal communicative strategies." Timothy Laughton, a British researcher, has provided a reading of the imagery and narrative depictions as one unified mythological whole, linking

205-549: A new series of excavations at the southern edge of the site. Mendelsohn's project, the Izapa Household Archaeology Project , sought to document daily life of Izapa's residents. This project contributed the first systematic economic data for the site. Mendelsohn's research focuses on the period between 100 BCE – 400 CE when monument production declined, and major changes in construction activity, burial practices, and ritual activities were recorded for

246-924: A number of popular works for the non-specialist audience, several of which were best-selling and much reprinted, such as The Maya (1966) and Breaking the Maya Code (1992). With Rex Koontz, he co-authored the book Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs , published in 1962. Coe was born in New York City, the son of designer Clover Simonton and banker William Rogers Coe . He attended Fay School in Southborough, Massachusetts , and St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire . He graduated from Harvard College in 1950, and he received his PhD in anthropology from

287-432: A ruler seated on a throne, which is located within a quatrefoil . The scene shown on Stela 8 is often compared to Throne 1, which was located by the central pillar of Izapa. Stela 8 may be showing a ruler seated atop Throne 1. "When considered as a conceptual unit, the imagery of Throne 1 and Stela 8 directly associates the ruler's political authority, symbolised by the throne, with his supernatural abilities, symbolised by

328-484: A shaman was in charge. This shaman-ruler would serve the role of both the political and religious leader. Izapa Stela 5 presents perhaps the most complex relief at Izapa. Central to the image is a large tree, which is surrounded by perhaps a dozen human figures and scores of other images. The complexity of the imagery has led some fringe researchers, particularly Mormon and "out of Africa" theorists, to view Stela 5 as support for their theories. Izapa Stela 8 shows

369-888: Is a very large pre-Columbian archaeological site located in the Mexican state of Chiapas ; it is best known for its occupation during the Late Formative period . The site is situated on the Izapa River, a tributary of the Suchiate River , near the base of the volcano Tacaná , the sixth tallest mountain in Mexico . The settlement at Izapa extended over 1.4 miles, making it the largest site in Chiapas. The site reached its apogee between 850 BCE and 100 BCE; several archaeologists have theorized that Izapa may have been settled as early as 1500 BCE, making it as old as

410-701: Is located on wet and hilly land made of volcanic soil; it is still fertile for agriculture . The weather is very hot and very wet. The area around Izapa was a major cacao producing area known as the Soconusco region, which was used by the Aztecs . Izapa was a large site that included extensive monuments and architecture. From north to south, the whole site is about 1.5 km long. The New World Archaeological Foundation project at Izapa mapped 161 total mounds. Izapa's Formative period core (850–100 BCE) has six major plazas. Groups A, B, C, D, G, and H are located around

451-559: Is most likely the Maya Hero Twins shooting a perched Principle Bird Deity with a blowgun. This scene is also shown on the Maya pot called the "Blowgunner Pot". It is also suggested that Stela 25 could be seen as a map of the night sky, which was used to tell the story of the Hero Twins shooting the bird deity. Early investigators were drawn to research at Izapa by the site's large mounds and many carved monuments. Drawings of

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492-443: Is not yet enough known to support Coe and that the term "Izapan Style" should only be used when describing art from Izapa. Virginia Smith argues that Izapan art is too unique and different in style to be the result of Olmec influence or the precursor to Maya art. Smith says that Izapan art is very site specific and did not spread far from the site. Izapan art most likely did indirectly influence Maya art, though it would just be one of

533-499: Is unclear if these two courts were used for the ballgame. Mound 30A was where a stepped pyramid was built. This pyramid was around ten meters high and probably used for religious and ceremonial purposes. Izapa is laid out just east of true north; the exact alignment is 21 degrees east of north. It is aligned with the volcano Tacaná and also seems to be situated to the December solstice horizon. Michael Coe describes Izapa as being

574-686: The Angkor civilization of ancient Cambodia, Angkor and the Khmer Civilization (2003, 2nd ed. 2018), was described by David P. Chandler as "the most thoroughgoing, accessible, and persuasive synthesis of precolonial Cambodian history, society and culture" that he had ever read. Coe added qualified support to the "Cultura Madre" view of the Olmec as the "mother culture of Mesoamerican civilization". His use of information obtainable from looted Maya ceramics attracted criticism. Some of Coe's work in

615-464: The Chaac of the Maya, Olmec-like swirling sky and clouds, feline mouth used as frame, representation of animals (crocodile, jaguar, frog, fish, birds), overlapping, and lack of dates. The sheer number of sculptures outweighs that of any contemporaneous site. Garth Norman has counted 89 stelae, 61 altars, 3 thrones, and 68 "miscellaneous monuments at Izapa. In contrast to the ruler-oriented sculpture of

656-526: The Epi-Olmec culture 330 miles (550 km) across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec , Izapan sculpture has features mythological and religious subjects, and is ceremonial and frequently narrative in nature. Also, in contrast to Epi-Olmec and later Maya stela, Izapa monuments rarely contain glyphs . Although this could imply that the Izapan culture lacked knowledge of any writing system , Julia Guernsey, author of

697-506: The Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1959. In 1955, shortly after commencing his graduate studies program at Harvard University, he married Sophie Dobzhansky , the daughter of the noted evolutionary biologist and Russian émigré Theodosius Dobzhansky . She was then an undergraduate anthropology student at Radcliffe College . Sophie translated the work of Russian mayanist Yuri Knorozov , The Writing of

738-596: The National Anthropological Archives . From 1961 to 1965 Gareth Lowe directed four seasons of excavations at Izapa as behalf of the New World Archaeological Foundation (an organization run out of Brigham Young University ). The NWAF excavations emphasized the discovery of monuments and understanding the construction history of Izapa's central plazas. As part of this project, Eduardo Martínez also developed

779-541: The Olmec sites of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán and La Venta . Izapa remained occupied through the Early Postclassic period, until approximately 1200 CE. Due to the abundance of carved Maya stelae and monuments at Izapa, the term "Izapan style" is used to describe similarly executed works throughout the Pacific foothills and highlands beyond, including some found at Takalik Abaj and Kaminaljuyu . Izapa

820-649: The Popol Vuh was but a fragment of a great lost pan-Maya mythology, and that Classic Maya rulers were shamanic figures as well as administrators. Aside from his work on the Maya, his short paper published during the height of processual archaeology , entitled "The Churches on the Green", which imagined how that approach would fail to discern the origins and purpose of three churches on the New Haven Green if they were studied five thousand years later. His book on

861-527: The Formative period center of Izapa was actually twice as large as was understood from the previous map and that the Classic period occupation was nearly three times as large as was indicated by the original NWAF map. The lidar map further illustrated an E-Group architectural alignment and terracing in the site center that had not been visible from the earlier NWAF map. In 2014, Rebecca Mendelsohn directed

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902-463: The Izapa culture was at least partially inhabited by speakers of Mixe-Zoque languages . Izapa gains its fame through its art style. The art found at the site includes sculptures of stelae and also altars that look like frogs. The stelae and frog altars generally went together, the toads symbolized rain. There are common characteristics of Izapan art, such as winged objects, long-lipped gods much like

943-561: The Maya God K, who carried a staff. Izapa Stela 4 depicts a bird dance, which has a king being transformed into a bird. The scene is most likely connected with the Principle Bird Deity. This transformation could symbolize shamanism and ecstasy, meaning the shaman-ruler used hallucinogens to journey to another world. The type of political system that was in place at Izapa is still unknown, though Stela 4 could suggest that

984-578: The Maya Indians (1967). Knorozov based his studies on De Landa's phonetic alphabet and is credited with originally breaking the Maya code. Coe's brother, William Robertson Coe II , was also a prominent Mayanist, associated with the University of Pennsylvania . The two brothers had a falling-out in the 1960s and rarely spoke of each other afterward. During the Korean War , Coe worked as

1025-560: The Middle Formative Duende phase, c. 900–850 BCE. After a hiatus of 25 years, excavations resumed at Izapa under the direction of Hernando Gómez Rueda, working for Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). Gómez Rueda spent four seasons at Izapa from 1992 to 1996 with the primary goal of documenting Izapa's hydraulic system and monuments. Gómez Rueda suggested several possible roles for Izapa's hydraulic system, including distribution of water throughout

1066-490: The Olmec colossal heads now known, such that he is now considered one of the discoverers of the Olmec. Coe and his students have contributed greatly to the decipherment of Maya writing. He championed Yuri Knorosov and the phonetic approach to decipherment, against the public rebukes of J. E. S. Thompson . At Yale University he taught the Mayanists Peter Mathews , Karl Taube , and Stephen D. Houston ,

1107-604: The Olmec field came under scrutiny by two scholars of Pre-Columbian art . For example, his work on the Cascajal Block and on the Wrestler was called into question. The scholars disputed his claims and found his work inadequately supported by evidence. The Cascajal block was argued to have many features fully consistent with Olmec imagery. The same was said for the Wrestler . Their criticisms were based on what

1148-667: The Terminal Formative (100 BCE – 250 CE), Early Classic (250–500 CE), Middle Classic (500–700 CE), Late Classic (700–900 CE), and Early Postclassic (900–1200 CE) periods. Groups A, B, and F are open for tourism today through Mexico's National Institute for Anthropology and History ( Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia ). Izapa's architecture makes up roughly 250,000 cubic meters when combined. The site included pyramids, sculptured plazas and squares, and possibly two ball courts . There are two long open areas that resemble ball courts found at other Mesoamerican sites, but it

1189-456: The central area of the site, on the western shore of River Izapa. "The core area of Izapa is formed by Groups A to E, G and H, which correspond to the period of the greatest apogee of the site, circa 300 B.C. to 50 B.C. " Group F, is located at northern end of the site. This group contains a ballcourt among other structures, and corresponds to the late occupational phase of the site. Group F includes later occupation and construction associated with

1230-775: The enormous El Chayal obsidian fields . Coe discovered the Primary Standard Sequence, a sequence of hieroglyphs appearing around the rim of many Classic Maya ceramic vessels. Coe organized an exhibit of some of those ceramics at the Grolier Club in New York, where he also publicized, for the first time, a newly-discovered Maya codex — the first found in the Americas — and only the fourth known to exist. Some of Coe's other insights were given in casual comments to his students or in short reports, including that

1271-513: The first detailed map of the site. Lowe and colleagues dated the majority of Izapa's monuments to the Guillen phase, from approximately 300 to 50 BCE, on the basis of ceramic and radiocarbon dates, associating them with Izapa's period of greatest sculptural and construction activity. Izapa's earliest mound, Mound 30 was among the areas most extensively studied by the NWAF was first constructed during

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1312-458: The god is walking on water while collecting fish into a basket and also wearing a basket of water on his back. Izapa Stela 2 , like Stela 25, has been linked to the battle of the Maya Hero Twins against Vucub Caquix , a powerful ruling bird-demon of the Maya underworld, also known as Seven Macaw . Izapa Stela 3 shows a deity wielding a club. This deity's leg turns into a serpent while twisting around his body. This could be an early form of

1353-546: The late twentieth century. He specialised in comparative studies of ancient tropical forest civilizations , such as those of Central America and Southeast Asia. He held the chair of Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Yale University , and was curator emeritus of the Anthropology collection in the Peabody Museum of Natural History , where he had been curator from 1968 to 1994. Coe authored

1394-463: The latter of whom collaborated with David Stuart . He sometimes collaborated with his Yale colleague, anthropological linguist Floyd Lounsbury . Coe also advised the authors of The Blood of Kings , a work about Classic Maya rulership, Mary Ellen Miller , at Yale, and Linda Schele , at the University of Texas at Austin. Coe's Breaking the Maya Code (1992), which describes these breakthroughs,

1435-439: The many influences on the Maya. Izapa is also included in the debate of the origin of the 260-day calendar . The calendar was originally thought to be a Maya invention, but recently it has been hypothesized that calendar originated in Izapa. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Izapa fits the geological and historical conditions better than the previous place thought to be the origin. Lyle Campbell hypothesized that

1476-773: The monuments at Izapa were first published in a pamphlet by Mexican professor Carlos A. Culebro. Karl Ruppert visited the site in 1938 while working with the Carnegie Institution. In 1941, Matthew Stirling working on behalf of the National Geographic and the Smithsonian Institution conducted a week of excavations at Izapa to better reveal some of the carved monuments. In a 1947, Philip Drucker expanded on Stirling's work with an additional series of small-scale test excavations. Notes and photographs from Drucker's expedition are housed in

1517-407: The mythology with the distribution of the monuments at the site. Among the possible Izapa glyphs discussed by scholars are some that are known as “U Shape”, “Border Panel” (skyband), and “Crossed Band”. These glyphs have parallels with known Olmec symbols. Izapa Stela 1 features a long lipped deity, which Coe describes as the early version of Maya god of lightning and rain, Chaac . In Stela I,

1558-504: The quatrefoil portal (Guernsey 2006). A striking parallel exists between the imagery of Chalcatzingo Monument 1 and Izapa Stela 8, both of which feature elite individuals enthroned within a quatrefoil." Izapa Stela 21 is a rare depiction of violence involving deities. The Stela illustrates a warrior holding the head of a decapitated god. Izapa Stela 25 possibly contains a scene from the Popol Vuh . The image depicted on Stela 25

1599-671: The site, pools for raising edible aquatic species, and a hybrid ceremonial-functional use. Beginning in 2011, the Izapa Regional Settlement Project (IRSP) became the first project to investigate Izapa from a regional settlement perspective. Over four seasons of survey between 2011 and 2015 director Robert Rosenswig , a professor at the University at Albany , and his team used lidar (light detection and ranging) to map sites and collect surface ceramics to document changing population trends at Izapa and nearby areas. Reports generated from this remapping suggest that

1640-462: The site. 14°55′23″N 92°10′48″W  /  14.923°N 92.180°W  / 14.923; -92.180 Michael D. Coe Michael Douglas Coe (May 14, 1929 – September 25, 2019) was an American archaeologist , anthropologist , epigrapher , and author. He is known for his research on pre-Columbian Mesoamerica , particularly the Maya , and was among the foremost Mayanists of

1681-533: Was nominated for a National Book Award. Coe was the first to date El Baúl Stela 1 correctly (Coe 1957; cf. Parsons 1986:61); this sculpture from the Southern Maya Area (SMA) is one of three known with Cycle 7 Long-count dated monuments, predating all Lowland Long-count dated sculptures. With Kent V. Flannery , he was the first to observe that the greatest southern area site, Kaminaljuyu , probably profited greatly from its proximity to and exploitation of

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