Worldviews: Maya Ceramics from the Palmer Collection February 19 to August 3, 2003 Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, University of Richmond Museums The Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, University of Richmond Museums, will open two exhibitions that focus on Pre-Columbian ceramics: Worldviews: Maya Ceramics from the Palmer Collection and Vessels and Ritual Objects: Pre-Columbian Ceramics from the Permanent Collection. Worldviews is an exhibition featuring Maya objects from the Palmer Collection of the Hudson Museum, University of Maine, Orono; and Vessels and Ritual Objects is comprised of Pre-Columbian artifacts from the collection of the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature.
Worldviews features more than forty vases, bowls, pendants, rattles, and figures grouped according to subject matter and designs. The objects all come from the Palmer Collection at the Hudson Museum, one of the premier collections of pre-Columbian art in the United States. These ceramics and carved jades, largely produced by Maya scribes and artisans during the Classic period (A.D. 250-900), contain a wealth of information about Maya ideology. The ceramics show views of a variety of worlds important to the Maya. On some vessels are the gods, monsters, and heroes of the underworld. On others are palace scenes of rulers and their attendants. Some show aspects of the cosmos, integral to the cyclical Maya universe. Plants and animals appear on other ceramics. Classic Maya civilization existed in southeastern Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, western Honduras, and western El Salvador. The civilization continued in the highlands of Guatemala and in the northern Yucatán until the arrival of the Spanish in the early 1500s. Maya civilization arose during the Preclassic period (as early as 1500 B.C.E.), but it was during the Classic period that it reached its pinnacle of technological developments, social complexity, and intellectual achievements in writing, mathematics, and astronomy. The exhibition interprets symbolism and hieroglyphs found in these objects in light of recent scholarship. The exhibition is organized and circulated by the Hudson Museum, University of Maine, Orono. It was curated by Stephen Whittington, former Director of the Hudson Museum and currently Director of the Museum of Anthropology, Wake Forest University, North Carolina. This exhibition made possible in part with the generous support of the University of Richmond Cultural Affairs Committee.