MEDIA CONTACT: Polly Burks
561-297-2595, pburks@fau.edu
BOCA RATON, FL (October 11, 2006) – Florida Atlantic University’s department of anthropology is hosting a Maya hieroglyphic lecture and workshop on October 20 and 21 on FAU’s Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road. The lecture “Sacred Texts and Painted Book: Yucatec Maya Rituals and Beliefs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest,” with Gabrielle Vail, will be held on Friday, October 20 at 7 p.m. in the Social Sciences Building, room 250. The workshop will be on Saturday, October 21 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Social Science Building, room 190. The lecture is free and open to the public, and a $35 donation is requested for workshop materials. Workshop registration is required by calling 561-297-3230 or by emailing cwilson@fau.edu. FAU students may participate for free.
Vail’s lecture is about the ritual, religion and beliefs of the ancient Maya of Yucatan as revealed by their screenfold books called codices. The Saturday workshop will focus on learning how to read the hieroglyphic texts of the codices. These books are mainly composed of ritual almanacs related to the sacred calendar. The workshop is for beginners and assumes no previous knowledge of the hieroglyphs. Attendees will work through the process of reading almanacs, both the simple calendar calculations and the hieroglyphic captions. A workbook will be provided to participants.
Vail received a B.A. from New College of Florida and a Ph.D. from Tulane University. She has research appointments at New College of Florida in Sarasota and the Middle American Research Institute at Tulane. Vail’s research focuses on the Maya codices, including their iconographic and astronomical content, and a linguistic analysis of their texts. She has published over 20 articles and book chapters on the Maya codices.
The series is sponsored by the generous support of Ann Adams and by the department of anthropology of FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.
- FAU -
