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David Stuart

@davidsstuart.bsky.social
238 followers 70 following 36 posts

Archaeologist, art historian, epigrapher, author, teacher. Researching the worlds of the ancient Maya and Mesoamerica. MacArthur Fellow, Professor at UT Austin.

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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Happy to finally see the new Rockefeller Wing at The Met. The Maya stela from Piedras Negras, Guatemala, always impresses (looted from there in the 60s). One detail I love is the elegantly carved skeleton with a cigar, probably representing a firefly (exoskeleton and cigar light, of course).
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
The last Maya hieroglyphs. Copied ca. 1877, from a lost indigenous historical chronicle in Mani, Yucatán. The glyphs are dates, marking the k’atuns (20 year) periods of history. From the copy of the Codex Perez, now at the Princeton University Library.
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Very proud of my students who did outstanding drawings of Maya texts for their first assignment. None had any background in this stuff two weeks ago. I’ve seen far worse in published articles!
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Next month in Austin we’ll be hosting a conference on this theme.
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Stopped a few days ago at the Maya site of Balamku, known for its well preserved temple facade, ca. 400-450 CE. The iconography shows 4 ancestral figures being reborn from cosmic mountains. Similar ideas of landscape and ancestry are found today in Maya communities in highland Guatemala & Mexico.
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
My new article is out, on the importance of naming in Maya and other early writing systems. Part of an excellent new book on Maya archaeology, art and history, in honor of my friend Steve Houston.
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Waxaklajun Ubah K’awil, the ancient Maya ruler of the city we know today as Copan, Honduras. Crowned in 695 CE, captured and executed in 738. Image: portrait on Stela A, dedicated in 731.
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
One of my favorite Mexica (Aztec) sculptures. A mad puma, just waking up from a nap. Gotta love the whiskers. Museo Templo Mayor, CDMX.
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
An example of ancient Maya writing. What I’ve studied and worked to decipher over the last fifty(?!) years.
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David Stuart @davidsstuart.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Bolo’s had enough with these cabinet picks.
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