Dean Miller to speak at Boston University about Maya murals

Yale College Dean Mary Miller will present the inaugural Raymond & Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture in Archaeology at Boston University on Wednesday, Feb. 29.

Miller, a specialist on Mesoamerican Art, is particularly known for her scholarship on Maya art and architecture. Her talk, “The Maya Murals of Bonampak: Life and Death at a Royal Court,” will focus on one of her particular interests: the 1,200-year-old wall paintings at a small Maya city in in Chiapas, Mexico.

The murals depict the splendor of an ancient royal court, as well as life scenes of battle, human sacrifice, and ritual. Dressed in elaborate textiles and towering headdresses, Bonampak’s ruler and his nobles are shown receiving foreign emissaries and tributes, engaging in court ceremonies, and stripping the clothes from fallen captives.

Miller will use both newly rediscovered and freshly commissioned photographs, as well as a series of recently completed reconstructions, to offer a window into this ancient civilization.

The Dean’s talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 6 p.m. in Rm. B50 of the Stone Science Building, 675 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. Click here for further information.

The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation endowed the lectureship at Boston University in honor of Professor Norman Hammond, whose research on the Maya civilization in Central America has been supported by the foundation for more than a decade.