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Jane MacLaren Walsh | |
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| Alma mater | M.A. University of the Americas, Ph.D. Catholic University of America |
| Known for | pre-Columbian artifact curating and investigations |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Anthropology, Archaeology |
| Institutions | National Museum of Natural History |
Jane MacLaren Walsh is an anthropologist and researcher at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. [1] She is known for her role in exposing faked pre-Columbian artifacts.
Walsh grew up in Mexico and studied at the University of the Americas for B.A. and M.A. degrees. [2] She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Catholic University of America with the doctoral thesis "Myth and imagination in the American story : the Coronado expedition, 1540-1542." [3]
Walsh's research specialty is crystal skulls, an artifact type often purported to be of Precolumbian origin and frequently revealed as hoaxes by archaeologists. Her interest in these objects began with the anonymous delivery of one such object to the Smithsonian in 1992. [4]
Notable cases she has investigated include crystal skulls alleged to have been of ancient Mesoamerican (mostly Aztec) origins, and a piece held by the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection purported to be an authentic pre-Columbian representation of Tlazolteotl, an Aztec and central Mexican goddess. [5]
the Tlazolteotl idol, like the crystal skulls, is a nineteenth-century fake.
The Toltec culture was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, reaching prominence from 950 to 1150 CE. The later Aztec culture considered the Toltec to be their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tōllān as the epitome of civilization. In the Nahuatl language the word Tōltēkatl (singular) or Tōltēkah (plural) came to take on the meaning "artisan". The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of the Toltec Empire, giving lists of rulers and their exploits.
The Olmecs were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures.
In Aztec mythology, Tlahzōlteōtl is a deity of sexuality, vice, purification, steam baths, lust, filth, and a patroness of adulterers. She is known by three names, Tlahēlcuāni and Tlazōlmiquiztli, and Ixcuina or Ixcuinan, the latter of which refers to a quadripartite association of four sister deities.
Crystal skulls are human skull hardstone carvings made of clear or milky white quartz, claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders; however, these claims have been refuted for all of the specimens made available for scientific studies. The results of these studies demonstrated that those examined were manufactured in the mid-19th century or later, almost certainly in Europe, during a time when interest in ancient culture abounded. The skulls appear to have been crafted in Germany, quite likely at workshops in the town of Idar-Oberstein, which was renowned for crafting objects made from imported Brazilian quartz in the late 19th century.
Frederick Albert Mitchell-Hedges was an English adventurer, traveller and writer.
The religion of the Olmec people significantly influenced the social development and mythological world view of Mesoamerica. Scholars have seen echoes of Olmec supernatural in the subsequent religions and mythologies of nearly all later pre-Columbian era cultures.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1906.
Olmec alternative origin speculations are non-mainstream pseudohistorical theories that have been suggested for the formation of Olmec civilization which contradict generally accepted scholarly consensus. These origin theories typically involve contact with Old World societies. Although these speculations have become somewhat well-known within popular culture, particularly the idea of an African connection to the Olmec, they are not regarded as credible by mainstream researchers of Mesoamerica and are considered fringe theories.
Aztec architecture is a late form of Mesoamerican architecture developed by the Aztec civilization. Much of what is known about this style of architecture comes from the structures that are still standing. These structures have survived for several centuries because of the strong materials used and the skill of the builders. Most civic architecture was concentrated in the center of Aztec cities. However, many cities had smaller supplemental ceremonial areas.
Ancient Mesoamericans were the first people to invent rubber balls, sometime before 1600 BCE, and used them in a variety of roles. The Mesoamerican ballgame, for example, employed various sizes of solid rubber balls and balls were burned as offerings in temples, buried in votive deposits, and laid in sacred bogs and cenotes.
Henry Bigger Nicholson who published under the name H.B. Nicholson, was a scholar of the Aztecs. His major scholarly monograph is Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl: The Once and Future Lord of the Toltecs (2001).
Eugène Boban or Boban-Duvergé (1834–1908) was a French antiquarian. He was the official archaeologist of the court of Maximilian I of Mexico, and a member of the French Scientific Commission in Mexico. From time to time he sold crystal skulls, one which is now in the Musée du Quai Branly and another in the British Museum.
Elizabeth Hill Boone is an American art historian, ethnohistorian and academic, specializing in the study of Latin American art and in particular the early colonial and pre-Columbian art, iconography and pictorial codices associated with the Mixtec, Aztec and other Mesoamerican cultures in the central Mexican region. Her extensive published research covers investigations into the nature of Aztec writing, the symbolism and structure of Aztec art and iconography and the interpretation of Mixtec and Aztec codices.
The Chachapoyan Fertility Idol, more commonly referred to as the Golden Idol, is a fictitious artifact that appears in the opening sequence of the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first entry in the Indiana Jones franchise created by George Lucas. It is the first relic that the audience sees the protagonist Indiana Jones acquire, establishing him as a treasure hunter. The idol's likeness has become iconic in popular culture.
Tenayuca is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican archaeological site in the Valley of Mexico. In the Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology, Tenayuca was a settlement on the former shoreline of the western arm of Lake Texcoco. It was located approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the northwest of Tenochtitlan.
Thelma Dorfman Sullivan was an American paleographer, linguist and translator, regarded as one of the foremost scholars in the 20th century of the Classical Nahuatl language. Significant works include a compendium of Nahuatl grammar (1976), noted as the most comprehensive treatment of its day, and her translation of Bernardino de Sahagún's 16th-century text known as the Primeros Memoriales, completed by colleagues after her death.
The use of mirrors in Mesoamerican culture was associated with the idea that they served as portals to a realm that could be seen but not interacted with. Mirrors in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica were fashioned from stone and served a number of uses, from the decorative to the divinatory. An ancient tradition among many Mesoamerican cultures was the practice of divination using the surface of a bowl of water as a mirror. At the time of the Spanish conquest this form of divination was still practiced among the Maya, Aztecs and Purépecha. In Mesoamerican art, mirrors are frequently associated with pools of liquid; this liquid was likely to have been water.
The Dumbarton Oaks birthing figure is a possibly Aztec scapolite figurine of a woman giving childbirth in a squatting position. Housed in the Dumbarton Oaks collection, United States, the figurine is considered by several scholars to be a pre-Columbian artwork, while others believe it was made in modern times, possibly in the 19th century. The figurine measures 20.2 cm in height.
Pál Kelemen was a Hungarian-American archaeologist, art historian, and international art lecturer who contributed to the research of Pre-Columbian art. Kelemen was one of the first to recognize the importance of medieval Spanish colonial artwork of the Americas. Kelemen received the Order of Merit from the government of Ecuador.
Frances F. Berdan is an American archaeologist specializing in the Aztecs and professor emerita of anthropology at California State University, San Bernardino.
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