Sunday, May 12, 2024, at 2 pm
Auditorium
Free | Advance ticket required
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Modern lovers of chocolate may not be aware that they owe their favorite treat to the Maya and other Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. Join anthropologist Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos as he explores the many meanings of the cacao plant in ancient Maya culture. Artistic representations, inscriptions, and archaeological residues prove that cacao was both a delicacy consumed in Maya royal courts as well as a prized crop, a major component of tribute, and a valuable commodity linked to important deities.
About the Speaker
Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos is associate professor of anthropology at Yale University with research interests in the art, religion, writing, and urban studies of ancient Mesoamerica, particularly on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. He has published extensively on Maya myth, iconography, and writing. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his archaeological fieldwork at the site of Cotzumalhuapa in southern Guatemala, a site with one of the earliest known Mesoamerican inscriptions and known for its fantastic monumental sculptures.
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