2003, ISBN: 9781231162606

Edition reliée

xiv+273 pages with 103 plates, numerous black and white figures and index. Quarto (11 1/4" 8 3/4") bound in original publisher's beige cloth with black lettering to spine, dust jacket red… Plus…

xiv+273 pages with 103 plates, numerous black and white figures and index. Quarto (11 1/4" 8 3/4") bound in original publisher's beige cloth with black lettering to spine, dust jacket reddish brown with black and white lettering to spine and front cover and white decorative Olmec design on front and back. Translated from the Spanish by Doris Heyden and Fernando Horcaitas. From the library of Professor Donald Wocerster. First American edition.In 1862 a colossal stone head was discovered in the state of Veracruz along the steaming Gulf Coast of Mexico. In the years to come, artifacts from the culture later termed Olmec turned up at widespread sites in Mexico and adjacent Central America, with the greatest number of characteristic themes being present in the region of the original discovery. Monuments were also an important characteristic of Olmec centers. Today they provide us with some idea of the nature of Olmec ideology. The colossal heads are commanding portraits of individual Olmec rulers, and the large symbol displayed on the 'helmet' of each colossal head appears to be an identification motif for that person. Colossal heads glorified the rulers while they were alive, and commemorated them as revered ancestors after their death. Altars were actually the thrones of Olmec rulers. The carving on the front of the throne shows the identified ruler sitting in a niche that symbolizes a cave entrance to the supernatural powers of the underworld. That scene communicated to the people their ruler's association with cosmological power. The magnificent colossal stone heads, massive altars, and sophisticated anthropomorphic and zoomorphic statues found at Olmec sites in southern Veracruz and Tabasco, are the oldest known monuments in Prehispanic Mexico. In 1939 a carving was discovered near the gigantic head with a characteristic Olmec design on one side and a date symbol on the other. This revealed a shocking truth: the Olmecs had a far greater right to be considered the mother culture. Hundreds of years earlier than anyone had imagined, simple villages had given way to a complex society governed by kings and priests, with impressive ceremonial centers and artworks. Today many find the term "mother culture" misleading, but clearly the Olmecs came first. Other megalithic heads were discovered in the intervening years, all with African facial features. This is not necessarily to suggest that the founders or leaders of Olmec civilization came directly from Africa, since many original populations of countries like Cambodia and the Philippines have similar characteristics. These might have been brought along when the first humans entered the Americas from Asia. At La Venta, Stirling and Philip Drucker, began excavations in a plaza area, Complex A, on the north side of La Venta's 32 meter-tall (106 ft.) earthen pyramid mound. They soon made astonishing discoveries. Their trenches uncovered caches of polished jade celts, colored clay floors, and several royal burials. One burial was in a large sandstone sarcophagus carved to depict a supernatural caiman. Two other burials occurred in a tomb chamber constructed from basalt columns. All the burials included offerings of beautiful greenstone figures, jewelry, and celts. When Stirling presented his discoveries at the meeting, held by the Mexican Society of Anthropology (Sociedad Mexicana de Antropologia) at Tuxtla Gutierrez in 1942, disagreements immediately arose over the dating of La Venta and the Olmec. Drucker believed that La Venta was contemporaneous with Classic period Maya civilization, while Alfonso Caso and Miguel Covarrubias eloquently argued that the Olmec precede the Maya and Mexico's other great civilizations. Stirling agreed with Caso and Covarrubias. Because the meeting had raised so many questions about the Olmec, historian Wigberto Jimenez Moreno wrote that same year about "El enigma de los olmecas." It took another 15 years to resolve the question of the antiquity of the Olmec. In 1957 the first radiocarbon dates from La Venta, 800-400 B.C., proved Caso, Covarrubias, and Stirling to be correct, and recent research and radiocarbon dating now places the time range of the Olmec from 1200 to 1500 B.C. Today the forest is gone at La Venta and a large Pemex refinery is located near the site, but archaeologists now have a clearer understanding of the Olmec. The Olmec no longer seem as enigmatic as they did in 1942. Much of the Olmec monumental art is found damaged and mutilated. The portrait statues of rulers are decapitated, and massive fragments are missing from the corners of altars. Only the colossal portrait heads survived relatively unharmed. Although that damage was once blamed on invaders or internal revolutions, it was an action that occurred repeatedly throughout the 700 years that the Olmec created monuments. Therefore, most scholars now believe that monument mutilation was carried out by the Olmec themselves for sacred or ritual reasons. Perhaps when a ruler died his monuments were destroyed. New evidence indicates that some monuments were broken and the pieces recarved to make other monuments. It is now known that two colossal stone heads from San Lorenzo had originally been large rectangular altars that were later resculpted into colossal heads. When a ruler died, was he venerated by converting his throne into his colossal portrait head. Geologists have determined that the basalt used to make most of the monuments at San Lorenzo and La Venta came from the area of the Tuxtlas Mountains. In 1960, archaeologist Alfonso Medellin Zenil discovered Llano del Jicaro, an Olmec basalt quarry site and monument workshop. The quarry, near the Tuxtla Mountains, is only 7 kilometers (4 miles) from the Olmec center of Laguna de los Cerros, and was controlled by it. Excavations at Llano del Jicaro in 1991 provided data on the process of monument manufacture. A large unfinished altar there demonstrates that the monuments were given their basic shape at the quarry site, and then transported to the centers for finishing. Although archaeology has answered many questions about the Olmec, many more still remain. Research has concentrated primarily on the centers of San Lorenzo and La Venta, and very little is known about Laguna de los Cerros, or smaller Olmec centers, or Olmec life in small farming hamlets. We also have very little archaeological information about the 500-300 B.C. time period in southern Veracruz and Tabasco and, therefore, we do not know how the Olmec culture ended. San Lorenzo and La Venta declined in importance, perhaps due to major change in the river systems that helped support those centers. However, in the northern area of the Olmec domain there was some cultural continuity long after 500 B.C. Tres Zapotes became an important post-Olmec center, and Laguna de los Cerros continued as a major center into the Classic period. One of the huge Olmec sculptures found at La Venta - This head is approximately 6 feet tall and 5 feet across. The stone it was cut from was quarried more than 50 miles from where it was discovered, prompting speculation about how it was transported.Donald E. Worcester (1915-2003) was an American historian who specialized in Southwestern United States and Latin American history. He was president of the Western History Association from 1974-1975. Worcester graduated from Bard College in 1939. He received an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1941. He then served in the US Naval Reserve in World War II. He received a PhD. from Berkeley in 1947. From 1947 until 1963 he was a professor at the University of Florida. He then was a professor at Texas Christian University and history department chair. From 1960 until 1965 he was managing editor of the Hispanic American Historical Review. Worcester's view that history is made of complexities, not dualities, is seen as foundational for much of the understanding by later scholars of Southwest United States history.Condition:Review copy from Donald Worcester library with his name on front end paper. Review notice laid in. Light rubbing to jacket else a better than very good copy in a very good to fine dust jacket., University of California Press, 1969, Moscow. Multilingual edition; Russian [main text], English, French, German [supplement].. Very good condition with minor signs of external wear. Several slight tears and wear to edges of dustjacket.. Multilingual edition; Russian [main text], English, French, German [supplement]. Moscow, c 1970. 22 cm x 28 cm. 193 pages. With 178 illustrations. Original Hardcover, with original dustjacket in protective Mylar. Very good condition with minor signs of external wear. Several slight tears and wear to edges of dustjacket. Beautifully illustrated throughout with black & white and colour photographs of the Baroque Moscow church interior. Main text in Russian, with a Summary, and List of illustrations in English, French, and German. Illustrations include Crucifix Principal Altar Vault, Murals on the Southern Wall of the Church, The New Testament Trinity, Apostle Philip is baptising the Eunuch, and Parable about the Publican and Pharisee., RareBooksClub. Paperback. New. This item is printed on demand. Paperback. 840 pages. Dimensions: 9.7in. x 7.4in. x 1.7in.This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: . . . as they saw them. Their Madonnas and saints were Flemish men and women, clothed in the costume of the day. They appeared in real Gothic churches and houses, or in landscapes containing actual trees and walled cities. The brothers Van Eyck take their name from a little town on the Maas, near Maastricht, called Maaseyck, where they were born. The dates of their birth are unknown, Huberts being variously assigned from 1366 to 1375, and Jans from 1386 to 1400. Of Hubert we only hear that in 1421-22 he was a member of a religious guild at Ghent, where he lived. He executed work for the magistrates of Ghent, who in 1424 visited his studio in state. They perhaps came to see the great altar which the rich burgher Jodocus Vydt, Lord of Pamele, had ordered for his chapel in the Church of Saint Bavon. Hubert did not live to finish this work, but died on September 18, 1426, and was buried in the crypt directly under the chapel he had been asked to decorate. As regards the life of Jan we are better informed. He was probably the pupil of his brother, who much exceeded him in years. From 1422 till 1424 he was in the service of John of Bavaria, then living as Count of Holland at The Hague, and in 1425 he was appointed Court painter and valet de chambre (a sort of chamberlain), with a salary of 100 livres a year, to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. He lived at Lille with the Duke, who employed him upon various diplomatic missions. In 1428-29 he was one of the embassy sent to Lisbon to negotiate the marriage of the Princess Isabella of Portugal to his master, and during his stay in Portugal he became acquainted with the southern vegetation which appears in his pictures. He made a pilgrimage to San Iago di Campostella, and visited the Alhambra. After his return to Fland. . . This item ships from La Vergne,TN., RareBooksClub<