Graphic and Photographic Documentation - Reed College

A detailed, chronological survey of Seler’s life and career. The author stresses the
importance of Seler’s early study of mathematics, natural science, and linguistics, as
a basis for his later work on the ancient Americas, and specifies 6 areas of Seler’s
major achievements: (1) studies of writing and the Maya calendar; (2) paleography,
translations of commentary and texts in native languages; (3) interpretation of
documents, pictographs and codices, religious; and (4) ethnohistorical studies of
cultural synthesis. Astonishingly, there is no mention of Seler’s major 1917 volume,
Die Ruinen von Uxmal. No doubt the author did not consider it theoretical enough.
Shanks, Michael
“Photography and Archaeology”. Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in
Archaeology, ed. Brian Leigh Molyneaux: 73-105. New York: Routledge, 1997.
In this article, the author provides a rich selection of examples demonstrating the
various ways in which archaeological images are interpretive. It is surprising, however,
to see this idea presented as a new discovery. Shanks writes: “There is little or no
questioning of conventional uses of photography. Archaeological photographs are
treated as transparent windows to what they are meant to represent” (p. 73). But
surely well before 1997 nearly all professional users of photographs recognized that
all images are interpretive. Historians of photography have for years published broadly
on the usefulness of photographs in reconstructing cultural attitudes to the past,
describing the rich complexity of interpretations they have to offer and the diverse
purposes they have served.
Spinden, Herbert J.
“The Stephens Sculptures from Yucatan”. Natural History: The Journal of the American
Museum. Vol. 20, No. 4 (Sept.-Oct. 1920): 378-389.
Photographs of the 2 Kabah doorjambs described in this article are reproduced on this web
site.
http://academic.reed.edu/uxmal/galleries/thumbnails/kabah/Kabah-RedHands.htm
This is the most informed and detailed account of the 6 major sculptures removed
from Uxmal and Kabah by Stephens and Catherwood in 1841, the so-called
“Stephens stones”. Spinden first gives a brief account of Stephens’ remarkably
productive professional life with a history of the Stephens stones. He notes that they
had recently [1919] become a part of the collection at the American Museum of
Natural History in New York, having been for 80 years in the private family collection
of John Church Cruger, to whom they had been given by Stephens.
There are a number of detailed observations about these sculptures, unpublished
elsewhere, in this eminently informed article by the curator in charge of the collection
at the Museum. These include the only detailed description of the 2 carved doorjambs
from Kabah, easily the most important pieces among the Stephens stones.
Reproduced side-by-side with a photograph of one of the jambs (not both as stated in
the text, p. 385) and the print from Catherwood’s summary drawing of it is a more
informative drawing by John Held Jr., carefully studied from the original jamb. Spinden
notes that “Each [jamb] consists of two separate stones, as indicated in the
50