[Aztlan] Maya panel

[Johanne Tournier]

Dear Karen, Elaine and All -

Elaine - are you related to the late, great Linda Schele, by any chance? 

I really don't have much to add to this discussion except to say that I am
new here and very grateful to Joel Skidmore of Mesoweb for telling me about
this list! Thank you, Joel! :-)

I am awestruck that Karen could precisely identify the fragment that John
copied. WOW! And it is also cool that David could provide the link to the
drawing of the whole relief on the FAMSI website. WOW again!!

Then it is also very cool to have Elaine note that that portion of the Panel
of the Sun was never missing/broken off, so what John saw must have been a
copy, most likely a modern one. Finding out more about the size of the
fragment that he saw should narrow that down. 

My husband and I were in Paleque for a couple of days in 2001. We had a
fantastic experience - the small jet that flew us from Flores, I think it
was, had *no* other passengers on it. We had the entire plane to ourselves,
with the flight attendant and flight crew - so when we got to Palenque, the
pilot kindly did a fly-past of the Palenque ruins - stunningly beautiful in
white highlighted against the green forest. <sigh> 

Anyway, we made a mad dash to buy some souvenirs before leaving Palenque a
couple days later, and a gentleman had two lovely replicas in limestone; one
was the Panel of the Sun and the other was the Panel of the Foliated Cross.
He said we could have both for (I forget the exact quote) something like
75,000 pesos. The other item I had my heart set on was a beautiful
hand-woven turquoise blue shawl in lovely, fine wool. We had to go back into
town and to exchange enough $$$$ to buy our purchases. When we came back,
the gentleman said he had made a mistake, he should have said it was *each*
panel was 75,000 pesos rather than 75,000 for the two. I said that was too
bad but we could only buy one then, because we were on our way back to
Flores that day, and I still had to go get that shawl, and we had just
enough $$$ to cover both purchases. So, I took the Foliated Cross, because
the design is a bit more elaborate than the Panel of the Sun. He said, "It's
still a very good price." And I had to admit that, yes, it was a good price,
but I just didn't have the shekels to spare at that point!

My panel measures about 8 1/2 x11". It was carved by Antonio Lopez Reyes of
Palenque, and it is beautiful! I am fairly sure that each glyph is an
accurate representation of the glyphs in the temple and could be read if I
could read Mayan.

While we were at Palenque we also got a replica of Pakal's coronation (with
his queen Zac Cuc handing him the jade crown) which is quite large and done
on leather - burned (I believe) and then painted. That was done by Miguel
Angel Cruz. I wonder how best that could be displayed? I hate to frame it,
because the scene is identified and it is signed on the back. Does anyone
have any ideas on how it could best be displayed and preserved?

I would just like to echo John's sentiments that it is wonderful to belong
to such a great group!!!

Best,

Johanne


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         Johanne L. Tournier
email - jltournier at ns.sympatico.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


-----Original Message-----
From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org]
On Behalf Of Karen Bassie
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 11:15 AM
To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Subject: [Aztlan] Maya panel

Yes Elaine, I should have been more precise in my statement. It is a 
copy of the corner of the TS panel. I think it is highly unlikely that 
John's panel is a Pre-Columbian copy given the vast number of modern 
carvings that have been produced by the Morales family and other great 
Palenque carvers. I purchased my first carvings from Moises in 1976. And 
much to my husband's dismay because we had just started our trip and we 
had to cart those heavy suckers for the remainder of our journey around 
Yucatan and Belize. Kudos to Jorge for the excellent analysis.
_______________________________________________
Aztlan mailing list
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/aztlan
Click here to post a message Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Click to view Calendar of Events http://research.famsi.org/events/events.php