Merle Greene Robertson

Robertson was born in 1913 in the small town of Miles City, Montana to Ada Emma Foote and Darrell Irving McCann. She moved to Great Falls, Montana as a small child. Here she became greatly interested in Native American culture and learned Indian sign language from Blackfoot Indian chiefs her father was close friends with.{{Cite book|title = Never in Fear|last = Robertson|first = Merle Greene|publisher = The Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute|year = 2006|isbn = 9780934051118}} In Great Falls she met the artist Charles M. Russell, who spent many afternoons teaching Merle how to paint. She moved to Seattle, Washington, as a teenager, completed high school there, and attended the University of Washington.Barnhart (2003, p.1). In interview, Robertson describes Mile City [sic] of the time as "...a little cattle crossing in the road."

Robertson started working as a commercial artist and gold leaf window painter; during the summers she worked at Camp Tapawingo. Following her graduation, she married her college boyfriend Wallace McNeill Greene. The couple was married for thirteen years and had two children, David and Barbara. However, the marriage dissolved when Robertson found out her husband had been having multiple affairs throughout the years. After the divorce, she and her children moved to California, where she began teaching at San Rafael Military Academy. There, she met Bob Robertson, the dean, who she would later marry. The Robertsons traveled to El Salvador to visit cadets Quiñónez, Escalon, and Sagrera, and learn about Salvadoran archeology. She later decided to go back to school, and moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Robertson earned her Master's of Fine Arts from the University of Guanajuato, where she studied watercolors, oils, photography, and mural painting from one of Mexico's top artists, James Pinto. After completing her MFA, she began working on the Tikal Project with the University of Pennsylvania in 1961.{{Cite journal|title = In memoriam: Merle Greene Robertson|last = Zender|first = Marc|date = 2011|journal = PARI Journal}} She spent three summers drawing the architecture of the Central Acropolis. She also started her famous rubbings at this time, making the art form a way to document and preserve the information on Maya relief sculptures. While she was there, it was suggested that she travel through Guatemala and record stelae at other sites.

While Robertson carved out a path for herself as a Mayanist, she continued to teach school in the states. She and her husband Bob both worked at the Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, California; this is where she first began to instill her love of the Maya into young students. She taught a Mesoamerican Archaeology class and took many of her students on expeditions into the jungles of Central America. Some of her students went on to study archaeology at college and pursue a career studying the Maya, one of the best examples being Mayanist Arlen F. Chase.{{Cite web|url = http://www.stevensonschool.org/alumni/stories/robertson/index.aspx|title = Remembering Merle Greene Robertson|year = 2011|access-date =1 November 2015|website = Stevenson School|last = Chase|first = Arlen|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150411032850/http://www.stevensonschool.org/alumni/stories/robertson/index.aspx|archive-date = 2015-04-11}}

File:Merle with rice rubbing.png

Initially trained as an artist, Robertson pioneered the technique of taking rubbings from Maya monumental sculptures and inscriptions, making over 4,000 of these over a career spanning four decades (2,000 being monuments).Some 2,000 of these rubbings are archived at the Tulane University's Latin American Library in New Orleans; see Gidwitz (2002), Olivera (1998). In a 2003 interview Robertson estimated that she had made "probably about four thousand" (Barnhart 2003, p.4). In many cases these rubbings have preserved features of the artworks which have since deteriorated or even disappeared, through the actions of the environment or looters. This method was first used by the ancient Chinese, but Robertson further developed and refined the process. She developed two techniques using two different types of ink on rice paper. The ink was chosen was based on the environmental conditions and the nature of the item being recorded.

Robertson, along with Mayanist Tatiana Proskouriakoff and Edith Ricketson, paved the way for women to enter the field of Maya archaeology. She was the first woman to join the Tikal Project, at a time when women generally did not work on archaeological projects.{{Cite journal|title = A celebration of the life of Merle Greene Robertson|last = Wyllys|first = Andrew|date = 2011|journal = PARI Journal}}

File:Palace tablet at Palenque from MesoWeb.gif

Robertson is most well known for her work at Palenque. In the 1980s, she undertook a project to document and record in detail all the sculptural art. This led to the instrumentation of the series of Mayanist conferences known as the Palenque Round Tables, which have produced some of the most significant breakthroughs in Maya research and the epigraphic decipherment of the ancient Maya script. The meetings started in December 1973 and ended in June of 1993. A total of 10 of the proceedings of the round table meetings have been published as volumes.

Robertson also worked at Chichen Itza for many years. Here she created a large, encompassing report of all the sculptures at the site.{{Cite web|url = http://www.instituteofmayastudies.org/index.php/features/archaeologists/merle-greene-robertson|title = Merle Greene Robertson|date = November 2015|website = Institute of Maya Studies|last = Kurjack|first = Edward}} Not only did she record the hieroglyphic and iconographic inscriptions, she also interpreted the work through the eyes of the authors. This showed her unique perspective as an artist rather than a formally trained archaeologist.

In 1982, Robertson founded the Pre-Columbian Art Institute, which publishes the PARI Journal. This non-profit organization supported the research of Mesoamerican art, epigraphy, and iconography, and funded archaeological excavations at Palenque under the Cross Group Project.

In 2004, Robertson received the Orden del Pop Award from Guatemala's Museo Popol Vuh in recognition of her decades of work preserving the country's Maya cultural heritage through her detailed documentation of Maya monuments and hieroglyphic writing.Museo Popol Vuh (n.d.) This Instituto de Nacional de Anthropologia e Historia (INAH) also presented her with the Order of the Aztec Eagle{{Cite book|title = Forward to Never in Fear|last = Matthews|first = Peter|publisher = Pre-Columbian Art Institute|year = 2006|location = San Francisco|pages = 13–18}} and named her Honorary President of the Palenque Round Tables, which have since continued.

{{reflist|1}}

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• {{cite web |author=Barnhart, Ed| date=December 2003 |title=Periodic Interview Series: Merle Greene Robertson |url=http://www.mayaexploration.org/pdf/interview_q2_merle.pdf |format=PDF, transcript of interview with Merle Greene Robertson, recorded December 2003 |work=Resources |location=Palenque, Mexico|publisher=Maya Exploration Center |access-date=2007-03-28}}
• {{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 journal |author=Doyle, John|date=4 September 2000 |title=Digging Deep: Archaeologist Merle Greene Robertson has spent four decades uncovering treasures of Mayan civilization |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2000/09/04/MNC992.DTL&hw=MAYAN+SYMBOLS&sn=003&sc=789 |format=online republication at SFGate |journal=San Francisco Chronicle |location=San Francisco |publisher=Hearst Corporation |page=A-5 |issn=1932-8672 |access-date=2009-12-15}}
• {{cite journal |author=Gidwitz, Tom| date=May–June 2002 |title=Doyenne of Mayanists: Merle Greene Robertson has spent a lifetime chronicling Mesoamerican art |url=http://www.archaeology.org/0205/abstracts/merlegreene.html |format=online abstract |journal=Archaeology |location=New York |publisher=Archaeological Institute of America |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=42–49 |issn=0003-8113 |oclc=95337645 |access-date=2007-03-28}}
• {{cite web |author=Olivera, Ruth|year=1998 |title=Merle Greene Robertson Collection, 1966 - 1993 |url=http://lal.tulane.edu/merlerobcoll.html |work=Latin American Library Manuscripts Collection |location=New Orleans |publisher=Tulane University |access-date=2007-03-28 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061208223830/http://lal.tulane.edu/merlerobcoll.html |archive-date = 2006-12-08}}
• {{cite web |author=Museo Popol Vuh |year=n.d. |title=Dra. Merle Greene Robertson: Orden del Pop 2004 |url=http://www.popolvuh.ufm.edu/eng/popMerle2004.htm |work=Orden del Pop |location=Guatemala City |publisher=Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad Francisco Marroquín |access-date=15 December 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080929205456/http://www.popolvuh.ufm.edu/eng/popMerle2004.htm |archive-date=29 September 2008 }}
• {{cite web |author=Zender, Marc|author2=Joel Skidmore |year=2011 |title=In Memoriam: Merle Greene Robertson |url=http://mesoweb.com/reports/Merle.html |publisher=Mesoweb}}

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• [http://www.precolumbia.org/pari/index.html Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute (PARI)], founded by Robertson
• [http://www.mesoweb.com/rubbings/index.html Merle Greene Robertson's Rubbings of Maya Sculpture], at Mesoweb. Contains online database of selected reproductions and some history.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070607053939/http://www.popolvuh.ufm.edu.gt/version_corta.wmv Merle Greene Robertson receives the Orden del Pop], video of award ceremony, Museo Popol Vuh (WMV format)

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Category:Mayanists

Category:American Mesoamericanists

Category:Women Mesoamericanists

Category:Mesoamerican epigraphers

Category:American women artists

Category:20th-century Mesoamericanists

Category:People from Great Falls, Montana

Category:1913 births

Category:2011 deaths

Category:People from Miles City, Montana

Category:American women archaeologists

Category:21st-century American women