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This article analyses the processes of revitalization of "ancestral authorities" in the Ixil Region (Guatemala), which from the protests against a transnational energy project culminated in the creation of the B'oq'ol Q'esal Tenam of Chajul, Nebaj, and Cotzal. Recognized by the Constitutional Court in 2015, the B'oq'ol Q'esal Tenam emerge in a complex and fragmented reality, using the interstitial spaces of neoliberal policies to contest them and give rise to alternative forms of decentralization to those proposed by the national political and institutional system.

Copyright of Ri-vista: Ricerche per la progettazione del paesaggio is the property of Firenze University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

El Mundo Magico de los Mayas is one of the most significant works of Leonora Carrington, who was the only foreign artist invited to decorate one of the rooms of Mexico City new National Museum of Anthropology in 1963. She was commissioned to decorate the room where artefacts coming from contemporary Maya civilization would have been displayed. The result was a multi-layered composition in which classical themes of surrealism coexisted with countless references to the Mayan culture.

Esse artigo analisa a apropriação e a influência do conceito Māyā na filosofia de Schopenhauer durante o período de gênese de sua filosofia (1813-1818). Diferente das análises meramente comparativas, nosso foco é apresentar uma pesquisa histórico-filosófica a partir dos Manuscritos Juvenis e d’O Mundo como Vontade e como Representação, assim como, delimitar a “Índia schopenhaueriana” a partir das obras consultadas pelo filósofo durante o referido período: Oupnek’hat, Asiatisches Magazin, Mythologie des Indous e Asiatick Researches. Nosso objetivo é demonstrar, cronologicamente, como Schopenhauer se apropriou do conceito Māyā, utilizando-o com sentidos e formas diferentes até consolidar o seu uso com a ideia de ilusão e influenciar sua teoria da Representação.

Comalcalco is a Mayan city located in Tabasco, southern Mexico. Its apogee occurred during the Late Classic, when the city was known as Joy’Chan and owned an emblem glyph reflecting its local political geography importance. The city was erected on an alluvial plain near the sea coast and adjacent to a river, a strategic place full of natural resources. The environment determined the building material. The initial architecture created by the Mayas used compacted earth covered with stucco, and the second stage was erected with brick masonry, a feature that makes it unique in Mesoamerica. Joy’Chan was a major vessels and molded figurines producer and trader. Its research over the last katun has revealed information of the city and its population as well as facts for better interventions in order to preserve its distinctive vestiges.

Urban arches are one of the most emblematic Mayan architecture elements, for their singularity and monumentality and also for their strategic urban location. They appear on its own or as a part of an ensemble, sometimes being part of the composition of a building façade, but always used in special settings, either generating access points to an enclosure or place, transitions between different urban spaces or emphasizing symbolically the access to relevant architectural ensembles. This paper presents the results of a documentation work of the urban arches identified in the Maya Lowlands, based on an in situ data gathering and the analysis of their features from the building technology, formal, functional and symbolic points of view.

Maya architecture was one of the most widely employed backdrops for the colour, and this application extended over a continuous period from the Mid-Preclassic period to the end of the Late Postclassic. The principal buildings of the Maya Lowlands were covered with stucco layers and painted with a rich colour palette that included pigments and colorants, and its archaeometric study offers important information on lime technology and colour technology between ancient Maya. On the other hand, these studies are necessaries for the conservation and restoration of Maya architecture and its polychrome decoration. Some of the analytical techniques more employed in these studies are Optical Microscopy (LM), Scanning Electronic Microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray (SEM/EDX), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) or Chromatographic Techniques (GC/MS; Pyr-GC/MS; HLPC).

In this paper I propose to apply hermeneutics for interpreting sacred architectures in the Maya region. In particular, the E Group of Uaxactun is the case study in which some theoretical discussions are being implemented. In this preliminary hermeneutical reflection, contemporary ceremonies, narratives and Indigenous Peoples play key roles. This reflection is aligned with postcolonial studies and historical criticism. The results shown here are preliminary, but it is expected that they trigger further discussions in the spirit of better understand the deep meanings of Maya ceremonial spaces and contemporary rituals.

From the calendrical, epigraphic and colonial data about Maya vision of creation and of the date 13.0.0.0.0 there are elements to suppose that Maya themselves could have consider the end of the thirteenth baktun both as an apocalyptic passage or as a “normal”, though very very rare, date. Among those in favor of an apocalyptic vision may be stated that: 1) the 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in two of the three Maya calendars present the same dates (among them the most important one: that of the ritual calendar 4 Ajaw) and then the same influences of the day of creation; 2) The god Bolon Yookte’ is in some cases associated with creation, with a prominent role in the documents of the Colonial Period; 3) the idea that in the past there had been other creations of humanity. Among those to the detriment of an apocalyptic vision may be stated that: 1) the creation event, that of the day 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 8 Kumku', is unique and unrepeatable; 2) the conception of cyclical creations is the result of influence Mexica and does not appear in the thought of the Classic Maya 3) December 21, 2012 does not reset the Long Count 13.0.0.0.0 but switches it to 13.0.0.0.1; 4) do not recur exactly all the same influences on the day of creation, the day of the month is different: instead of 8 Kumku' does occur 3 Kank'in; 5) in the documents of the Classic Period Bolon Yookte' is not the deus ex machina of creation, a role that belongs to God and God L D, but only one of those present.

The fluidity of post-modern vision and interaction with the tourist market and mass media are leading to increasing mythification and commodification of Native American cultures. In this article, we provide some case histories revolving around the so-called 2012 Maya Prophecy, for example Eugenia Casarin Limón, who in Mexico presents herself as a psychotherapist and member of an originally French neo-Hermetic organization, whereas in Italy she appears as a "Maya priestess"; or the better known José Argüelles, whose cultural background is entirely North American and European. Argüelles has made use of an ethnic Maya, Hunbatz Men, who however drew inspiration, not from traditional sources, but from a self-styled Gnostic movement, founded by the German adventurer Arnold Krumm-Heller; and the Mexican author Martínez Paredez, who inspired the symbolic work of Argüelles, was in turn inspired by a French Freemason, Augustus Le Plongeon. Application by Argüelles and others of the I Ching to the so-called Maya Prophecy is especially interesting because of the changing meaning of this Chinese work to the West, from the times of the Jesuit missions to today's cyberculture. The Maya Prophecy has much more to tell us about “Western” culture than about the Mesoamerican world.

Si pour Mircea Eliade le temps sacré est le salut face à la terreur de l’Histoire, l’espace sacré sauve du chaos et devient un moyen d’instaurer le Cosmos par la révélation du sacré. Considérant le sacré comme rupture dans l’ordre de la signification, comme court-circuit entre l’intelligible et l’inintelligible, mais aussi comme transgression d’un niveau à l’autre, nous abordons les problèmes de l’espace fantastique dans le conte Minuit à Serampore de Mircea Eliade pour montrer que l’émergence du sacré crée des failles à l’intérieur de l’espace commun, tout en intercalant des espaces qualitativement différents, pleins, investis, significatifs. Orientés vers un Centre, ces espaces engendrent la rupture de niveau, ouvrent vers un plan sacré, réel par excellence, créant les prémisses d’une communication avec le transcendent. Le mystère ressemble aux voiles de Maya et permet au personnage la compréhension du réel comme réalité double, immanente et transcendante à la fois. Par une force qui leur est extérieure et qui tient de la magie, les héros sont projetés dans un autre temps par la puissance d’un espace où réverbère une histoire du bon vieux temps. Ceux-ci ont d’abord l’impression d’avoir égaré la route et observent effarés les métamorphoses de l’espace qui les projette dans une histoire terrifiante intervenue 150 ans avant dans la famille d’un noble hindou, Nilamvara. La distance qu’ils prennent par rapport à cet espace hallucinant les fait retourner au réel et une parabole prononcée par Swami Shivananda semble éclairer tant soit peu le narrateur terrifié sur l’irréalité de toutes les choses de notre monde comme sur la relativité de toutes nos expériences.

Los gobernantes mayas prehispáni­cos desempeñaron cargos y ostentaron títulos que los vinculan directamente con lo sagrado. Además hay numerosas evidencias iconográficas y epigráficas de que, al menos durante el período Clási­co (250-900 d. C.), fueron considerados divinos, quizá incluso recibiendo culto, y acumularon las más altas atribucio­nes rituales. El fin de la cultura clásica es también el final del carácter sagrado del poder aparentemente, aunque el go­bernante conserva importantes atribu­ciones religiosas hasta la llegada de los españoles.

Copyright of Confluenze. Rivista di Studi Iberoamericani is the property of Universita di Bologna, Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Moderne and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In Bernanrdo Bertolucci’s film Prima della Rivoluzione (1964) is narrated an Indian tale about time’s flimsiness; in 2002 the same film-maker realized a short on the same theme, Histoire d’eaux, for the collective cine-production Ten Minutes Older: The Cello. Nobody has never observed that same tales very similar to Bertolucci’s one in the up-mentioned films are narrated also in two ancient Sanskrit works: the Brahmapurāṇa and the Varāhapurāṇa. The cited tale in Bertolucci’s two films should prove the fact that time is an illusion, a false perception. In the up-mentioned Sanskrit works this theme is more complex, it would demonstrate that not only time’s perception doesn’t exist, but also that every perception is flimsy including everyone’s perception of life. The theoretical constant between all these literary and cine narrations stays at the particular water’s symbology containing the emblem of the continuous and, at the same time, fixed becoming. This essay ought to analyse the narrative and ideological evolution of the Indian tale, the stylistic variations found among the individual claims of the story, both in the Sanskrit literature and in Bertolucci’s cine-production, as well as the intermedial translations from a code to another one.