:en:Tatiana Proskouriakoff

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Tatiana Proskouriakoff

| native_name = Татья́на Авени́ровна Проскуряко́ва

| image = Charsolomon TProskouriakoff.jpg

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| birth_name = Tatyana Avenirovna Proskuryakova

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1909|1|23}}

| birth_place = Tomsk, Tomsk Governorate, Russian Empire

| death_date = {{death date and age|1985|8|30|1909|1|23}}

| death_place = Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

| citizenship = United States

| nationality = Russian

| ethnicity =

| fields = Mayanist archaeology and linguistics

| workplaces = Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Carnegie Institution of Washington
University of Pennsylvania Museum

| alma_mater = Pennsylvania State University

| doctoral_advisor =

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| notable_students =

| known_for = Seminal contributions to Mayanist archaeology

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Tatiana Proskouriakoff ({{langx|ru|Татья́на Авени́ровна Проскуряко́ва}}, tr. Tatyana Avenirovna Proskuryakova; {{OldStyleDate|23 January|1909|10 January}} – 30 August 1985) was a Russian-American Mayanist scholar and archaeologist who contributed significantly to the deciphering of Maya hieroglyphs, the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica.

Born in Tomsk, Tatiana moved to the US with her parents in 1916. In 1924, she accepted American citizenship. She graduated from the College of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University (1930). In 1936–1937, she took part in two seasons of an archaeological expedition to Piedras Negras (Guatemala). In 1939, she made scientific trips to Copán and Chichen Itza. From 1940 to 1958, she was a staff member of the Carnegie Institute and developed methods of dating ancient Mayan monuments based on the peculiarities of the fine arts style. From 1950 to 1955, she worked at the excavations of Mayapan. In 1958, Proskouriakoff moved to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, where she worked until her retirement in 1977. In her final years of life, she had Alzheimer's disease.

Proskouriakoff's most significant scientific contribution is considered to be the consistent application of the structural method to Mayan inscriptions of the classical period, as a result of which she proved that historical events were recorded on the monuments. Publications about new method application have been published since 1960. In 1967, she wrote the preface for the English translation of Yuri Knorozov's monograph "Writing of Maya Indians". However, she did not try to voice Maya texts, although she recognized the method of deciphering the written language.

Her work laid a solid foundation for understanding Mayan historical texts and reconstructing the political history of Mayan city-states. In 1974, she prepared a catalog of 1000 jade products from the sacred cenote Chichen Itza, kept in the Peabody Museum. Proskouriakoff worked for over 20 years on the consolidated history of the Maya, which was published posthumously in 1994. In 1998, part of Proskouriakoff's ashes was buried in the "J-23" building on the Acropolis in Piedras Negras, which she depicted in her archaeological reconstructions.[https://books.google.com/books?id=TUfmL7drrI8C&pg=RA1-PA8 Solomon C. Tatiana Proskouriakoff: interpreting the ancient Maya]. — Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. — 218 p. — {{ISBN|0-8061-3445-3}}. The Ceremony of the Ashes (1998)

Early life

She was born in Tomsk, in the Tomsk Governorate of the Russian Empire, to a chemist and his physician wife. The family traveled to the United States in 1915, her father being asked by Tsar Nicholas II to oversee the production of munitions for World War I. The Russian Revolution forced the family to remain permanently. She was to visit Russia only once after that, to meet the Mayanist Yuri Knorozov.

She was devoted to a career in interpreting art, architecture, and hieroglyphics. She could read proficiently at age 3. She had a talent for drawing and received lessons in art and watercolor.Char Solomon. "Tatiana Proskouriakoff

(1909-1985) and her Contributions to Mesoamerican Archaeology". June 2007. Retrieved 2011-10-24.

The family lived for a while in Ohio, then moved to the Philadelphia area, settling down in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. Proskouriakoff graduated valedictorian of her class and was the editor of the school yearbook.

{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wVcgYsesO0 Unearthed in the Archives - Tatiana Proskouriakoff], Penn Museum }}

In 1926, Tatiana enrolled at the Pennsylvania State College School of Architecture and graduated as the only female in her class in 1930. Initially educated as an architect, she later went on to work for Linton Satterthwaite and for the University of Pennsylvania Museum at the Maya site of Piedras Negras in 1936–37. The Piedras Negras site lies between Mexico and Guatemala in the Usumacinta region. Specializing in architecture, Tatiana's first assignment at Piedras Negras was to illustrate the architectural ruins of the site. These initial travels would be the start of her life's work, as she found a passion for studying the ancient Maya. Upon her return to Philadelphia, she made a reconstruction drawing of the Piedras Negras acropolis which caught the attention of Silvanus Morley. Morley realized the young architect's remarkable ability to visualize a ruined structure as it once stood and render it with artistic precision. This would later lead to Tatiana's collaboration with Morley.{{Cite news|url=http://www.instituteofmayastudies.org/index.php/features/pioneers-in-maya-archaeology-2/tatiana-proskouriakoff|title=Tatiana Proskouriakoff|last=Merwin|first=Keith|work=Institute of Maya Studies|access-date=2018-03-30|language=en-gb}}

Career

File:Proskouriakoff Structure I at Xpuhil.jpg (1943)]]

File:XpujilByPhilKonstantin.jpg

While enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Proskouriakoff prepared archeological illustrations as a volunteer at the University Museum. Through her work with the museum's Assistant Curator of the American Section, Linton Satterthwaite, Proskouriakoff received an invitation in 1936 to join the museum's excavation work at the Maya site of Piedras Negras.Pezzati, A. (2001). The Hand of Fate in Tatiana Proskouriakoff's Career. Expedition, 43(3), 3. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Although Proskouriakoff never received a degree in the field of Maya studies, her dedication and ability for it led to her receiving positions at the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C., then later at Harvard University. Her position at Carnegie was procured when Sylvanus Morley saw the panoramic reconstruction on a visit to the museum; he was impressed and prevailed upon her to make more for the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Unable to get the institution to hire her, he raised funds to enable Proskouriakoff to travel to Copán and Yucatán, which she did in 1939. Returning after she completed the drawings, she was given the post of a research associate at the Institution in the early 1940s.

She soon became involved in Maya hieroglyphs and made significant contributions to the understanding of Mayan written language. For example, her 1942 scholarly analysis of the hieroglyphics at the Takalik Abaj ruins in Guatemala establish that the site was in part Maya, settling a debate at that time.{{cite book |last= McNally|first= Shelagh|title= Guatemala: Pocket Adventure Guide|publisher= Hunter Publishing, Inc|isbn= 1-58843-528-8|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=x7CtmPL5DMQC&q=Tatiana+Proskouriakoff&pg=PA264|page= 264 |year= 2006}} Her greatest contribution was considered the breakthrough for Maya hieroglyphic decipherment in the late 1950s and early 1960s. While researching the chronology of changing styles of Maya sculpture, she discovered that the dates shown on the monumental stelae were actually historical, the birth, accession, and death dates for Maya rulers.David Stuart and Stephen D. Houston, "Maya Writing", Scientific American, August 1989, as cited in http://www.instituteofmayastudies.org/images/Pioneers/Tatiana_Proskouriakoff.pdf Analyzing the pattern of dates and hieroglyphs, she was able to demonstrate a sequence of seven rulers who ruled over a span of two hundred years. Knowing the context of the inscriptions, Maya epigraphers were then able to decipher the hieroglyphs.

She became honorary curator, Maya art, of the Peabody Museum in 1958. Tatiana Proskouriakoff died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August 30, 1985. She was 76 years old.{{cite news |first=Sullivan |last=Walter |title=Tatiana Proskouriakoff Dies. Key Figure in Mayan Studies. |quote=Tatiana Proskouriakoff, whose deciphering of Mayan glyphs helped lay the foundations of modern Mayan historical studies, died Aug. 30 in Cambridge, Mass., the Peabody Museum of Harvard University said yesterday. She was 76 years old and was long associated with the museum. She was also widely known for her ... |url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30A14FD385F0C728DDDA00894DD484D81 |work=New York Times |page=27 |date=1985-09-11 |accessdate=2008-09-14 }} On Easter Sunday 1998,Stephen D. Houston, [http://www.famsi.org/reports/97006/97006Houston01.pdf Investigations at Piedras Negras, Guatemala: 1998 Field Season], p.6. after waiting more than a decade for political tensions to ease along the Usumacinta River, friend and colleague David Stuart carried Tatiana's ashes to Piedras Negras, where they were interred at the summit of the Acropolis, the group of structures in Tania's first and perhaps most famous reconstruction drawing, the same one that launched her career.{{harvnb|Solomon|2002}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TUfmL7drrI8C&pg=RA1-PA8 p.168-169].

Awards and recognition

member of the American Anthropological Association
Alfred V. Kidder Medal for eminence in American archaeology, 1962
Woman of the Year by Pennsylvania State University, 1971
Order of the Quetzal, Guatemala's highest honor, 1980 in 1984?
Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Tulane University, 1977
Elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society, 1981{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Christopher+C.+Booth&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}

Published works

Proskouriakoff's publications include:

{{cite journal |title=An Inscription on a Jade Probably Carved at Piedras Negras |journal=Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology |date=1944 |volume=2 |issue=47 |pages=142-147 |publisher=Carnegie Institution of Washington. Dept. of Archaeology. |location=Washington, D.C. |jstor=j.ctt46ntv8.53 }}{{cite web |last1=Mandica-Hart |first1=Olivia |title=Biographical note on Tatiana Proskouriakoff |url=https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/4/resources/10935 |website=Papers of Tatiana Proskouriakoff |publisher=Harvard University Archives |access-date=21 July 2024 |date=August 2020}}
{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=obazzfkE6-AC |title=An Album of Maya Architecture |date=1946 |publisher=Carnegie Institution of Washington |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0-8061-1351-7 |lccn=47003736 |oclc=4152931 }}
Middle American Art, 1950
[https://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Proskouriakoff/Proskouriakoff.pdf A Study of Classic Maya Sculpture] Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication No. 593, 1950
Varieties of Classic Central Veracruz Sculpture American Anthropology and History LVIII, 1954
{{cite journal |title=Historical Implications of a Pattern of Dates at Piedras Negras, Guatemala |journal=American Antiquity |date=April 1960 |volume=25 |issue=4 |pages=454–475 |doi=10.2307/276633 |publisher=The Society for American Archaeology |location=Washington, D.C.}}
Portraits of Women in Maya Art, 1961
Lords of the Maya Realm Expedition Magazine IV(1) 1961
Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico (with H E D Pollock, A L Smith and R L Roys) Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication No. 619, 1962
Historical Data in the Inscriptions of Yaxchilan, Part 1 Estudios de Cultura Maya III, 1963
Historical Data in the Inscriptions of Yaxchilan, Part 2 Estudios de Cultura Maya IV, 1964
Olmec and Maya Art: Problems of Their Stylistic Relation Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, 1968
Classic Art of Central Veracruz Handbook of Middle American Indians Vol XI, 1971
{{cite book |last1=Slater Spotnitz |first1=Lisa |editor1-last=Proskouriakoff |editor1-first=Tatiana |editor2-last=Sabloff |editor2-first=Jeremy A. |editor3-last=Willey |editor3-first=Gordon R. |editor1-link=Tatiana Proskouriakoff |editor2-link=Jerry Sabloff |editor3-link=Gordon R. Willey |title=The Maya : An Introduction |date=1974 |isbn=0873659953 |publisher=Peabody Museum }}
[https://archive.org/details/jades-from-cenote-proskouriakoff-1975 Jades from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan] 1974. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology v. 10, no. 1
Graphic designs on Mesoamerican pottery
Maya calendar round dates such as 9 Ahau 17 Mol
{{cite book |last1=Proskouriakoff |first1=Tatiana |editor1-last=Joyce |editor1-first=Rosemary A. |editor1-link=Rosemary Joyce |title=Maya History |date=1993 |publisher=University of Texas Press |location=Austin, Texas |isbn=0292750854 |url=https://archive.org/details/mayahistory0000pros |lccn=92009387 |oclc=25507929 |access-date=21 July 2024 |quote=foreword by Gordon R. Willey ; biographical sketch by Ian Graham ; illustrations by Barbara Carpenter Page. }}

References

Sources

{{cite book |author=Coe, Michael D. |author-link=Michael D. Coe |year=1987 |title=The Maya |edition=4th revised |series=Ancient peoples and places series|location=London and New York |publisher=Thames & Hudson |isbn=0-500-27455-X |oclc=15895415}}
{{cite book |author=Coe, Michael D. |author-link=Michael D. Coe |year=1992 |title=Breaking the Maya Code |location=London |publisher=Thames & Hudson |isbn=0-500-05061-9 |oclc=26605966 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/breakingmayacode00coem_0 }}
{{cite book |author=Coe, Michael D. |author-link=Michael D. Coe |author2=Mark van Stone |year=2005 |title=Reading the Maya Glyphs |edition=2nd |location=London |publisher=Thames & Hudson |isbn=978-0-500-28553-4 |oclc=60532227 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/readingmayaglyph0000coem }}
{{cite book |author=Marcus, Joyce |author-link=Joyce Marcus |year=1989 |chapter=Tatiana Proskouriakoff |editor1=Ute Gacs |editor2=Aisha Khan |editor3=Jerrie McIntyre |editor4=Ruth Weinberg |title=Women Anthropologists: Selected Biographies |edition=Reprint of Westport, CT: Greenwood Press original, 1988, Illini Books |location=Urbana |publisher=University of Illinois Press |pages=297–302|isbn=0-252-06084-9 |oclc=19670310}}
{{cite book |author=Sharer, Robert J. |author-link=Robert Sharer |author2=Loa P. Traxler |year=2006 |title=The Ancient Maya |edition=6th, fully revised |publisher=Stanford University Press |location=Stanford, CA |isbn=0-8047-4816-0 |oclc=28067148 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ancientmaya0006shar }}
{{cite book |last=Solomon |first=Char |year=2002 |title=Tatiana Proskouriakoff: Interpreting the Ancient Maya |location=Norman |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=0-8061-3445-3 |oclc=48965183}}
{{cite conference|author=Stuart, David |author-link=David Stuart (Mayanist)| date=December 1987 |title=Ten Phonetic Syllables |url=http://www.mesoweb.com/bearc/cmr/14.html |format=PDF online republication: October 2005 |book-title=Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, 14 |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Center for Maya Research }}
{{cite journal | author=Villela, Khristaan D. | year=2000 | title=Morley Hires Tatiana Proskouriakoff | journal=The PARI Journal |publisher=Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute |location=San Francisco, CA |volume=I |issue=2 |issn=1531-5398 |oclc=44780248 | url= http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/02/proskouriakoff.html |format=PDF online reproduction |accessdate = 2006-07-28}}

External links

{{cite web |title=Papers of Tatiana Proskouriakoff |url=https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/4/resources/10935 |website= |publisher=Harvard University Archives }}
[https://primo.getty.edu/primo-explore/search?query=creator%2Cexact%2CProskouriakoff%2C+Tatiana%2C+1909-1985&vid=GRI&offset=0 Proskouriakoff, Tatiana, 1909-1985] works in the collection of the Getty Research Institute library
[https://www.google.com/search?q=site%253Amesoweb.com+Proskouriakoff Proskouriakoff, Tatiana, 1909-1985] works in the collection of Mesoweb
David Stuart and Stephen D. Houston (1989) [http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/legacy/mayan_lost_tribes/maya_writing/writing.html Maya Writing].; Scientific American via Mesa Community College
Villela, Khristaan D. (2000) [http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/02/proskouriakoff.html Morley Hires Tatiana Proskouriakoff] [https://www.precolumbia.org/pari/about.html PARI: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070613162647/http://www.authenticmaya.com/maya_writing.htm Guatemala, Cradle of the Maya Civilization] authenticmaya.com
[https://www.archaeological.org/archaeologists-you-should-know-proskouriakoff/ Archeologists you should know] Archaeological Institute of America
{{cite news |last1=Gracht |first1=Carlos Rosado van der |title=The story of one of archaeology's greatest trailblazers, Tatiana Proskouriakoff |url=https://yucatanmagazine.com/the-story-of-one-of-archaeologys-greatest-trailblazers-tatiana-proskouriakoff/ |access-date=21 July 2024 |work=Yucatán Magazine |date=28 October 2021}}