Izamal Photographs

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Metadata

Core Title Izamal Photographs

Collection description "Izamal (eeh-sah-mahl)"
"Izamal is an important Maya site and colonial city in the northern Yucatán Peninsula, about 40 miles east of the Yucatán’s capital city of Mérida. The ancient Maya city of Izamal was founded in (750-200 B.C.) and remained occupied until the Spanish Conquest."
"Five large Pre-Columbian structures are scattered around the city perimeter of Izamal. The most important is one of the highest pyramidal temples in the Yucatán, which was dedicated to the Maya Sun God, Kinich Kak Mo. It contains a base platform covering over 2 acres of land, and a volume of some 700,000 cubic meters. Atop this grand base is a 10 level pyramid. The structure is available for visitors to visit at no entrance fee, and is not difficult to climb and study."
"Following the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the 16th century a colonial city was founded atop the original Maya site and it was decided to build a small Christian temple atop the great pyramid and use a nearby pyramid as a base on which to construct a large Franciscan Monastery and chapel complex named after San Antonio de Padua. Finally completed in 1561, the atrium of the Monastery was second in size only to that at the Vatican. Many of the ancient Maya cut stones from the Pre-Columbian structures were reused to build the sprawling Spanish monastery, and its surrounding buildings."
"The monastery of Izamal became home for the Franciscan Bishops who were sent from Spain, and the first Bishop was Franciscan Friar Diego de Landa, who considered his home to be the Izamal Monastery while he was living on the peninsula. Landa was accused of introducing and practicing the brutal inquisition and also destroyed more than 40 of the hand-painted books, which described Maya history in pictures and written word glyphs. Which Lana insisted had been created and painted by the devil, so he collected and burned all of them he could find. That event is considered to be a major historical tragedy by archaeologists and historians."
"Later, to his credit, Bishop Landa researched, wrote and published an invaluable book describing the Maya customs, their Yucatán governmental structure and some basic information on their language, which eventually helped in the successful deciphering of the Maya glyphs."
"Fortunately, three of the original hand-painted Maya books later were discovered, one in Spain, and the other two in France and Germany, and they have been preserved and studied by many Maya researchers and have aided archaeologists and historians in our knowledge of the Maya." -- Payne Johnson.
“See also John Lloyd Stephens, 'Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan,' with numerous engravings. Revised from the latest American edition, with additions, by Frederick Catherwood. London: Arthur Hall, Virtue & Co., 1854. https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1QKX7SV5?WS=SearchResults.”

Creator Johnson, Payne B. (photographer)

Publisher University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Date Created 1982-12, 1992-01

Coverage Temporal 1982-12, 1992-01

Place Name Central America (regions), Izamal (archaeological sites), Mexico (countries), North America (continents), Yucatán (states)

Subject Archaeological site location (lcsh)

Tags OAI-PMH Harvest

Format 5 photographs (extent), ruins (aat)

Internet Media Type multipart/related

Type images

Source 20210812-johnson-meso-shoaf (batch), Izamal Photographs (subcollection), Payne B. Johnson Latin American Photographs (collection), University of Southern California (contributing entity)

Identifier 2 (box), 0550 (collection number), johnson-bci (filename)