ARCH 231: Mesoamerican Archaeology

You will select an object from one of the online museum collections listed below. The object must be associated with one of the Mesoamerican cultures or sites you have studied this semester. 

Each website and its search functionality is formatted differently. You may want to explore objects by named collection - for example, "Teotihuacan" - or search by keywords to locate relevant results. 

You will create Chicago (Author-Date) citations for your objects. A basic format for citing an object without a named author is as follows:

Title. Date. Material, dimensions. Institution, location. URL. 

Citation Examples

Aztec Calendar Stone.1375-1520 CE. Stone, diameter 3.5 m. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, Mexico. https://jstor.org/stable/community.9196156.

Hummingbird Bloodletter. 900-300 BCE. Jadeite, 17.15 cm x 2.54 cm x 2.22 cm (6 3/4 in x 1 in x 7/8 in). Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. http://museum.doaks.org/objects-1/info/23094. 

Pair of Earflares.10th-4th century BCE. Jade, height 4 3/8 in (11.1 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/316286.

In the assignment you are asked to created a broader cultural and historical context for the material object you are analyzing. This can be accomplished through several interconnected methods: 

• Utilize the recommended reference resources on the home page of this guide to build an understanding of the historical period an object originated from and its importance to that culture.
   
• Find similar objects from other sites found in the same region and time period. This can be discovered through online museum collections or print materials we have available in Snowden Library. 
   
• Locate journal articles that discuss your object type and its cultural context. JSTOR is a great starting point as it also includes a large image library as well as any of the recommended databases from the Group Research Project.