Small abstracted attributes, decorations, or portions of animals were used as isolated motifs. Iconography involves recognizing which designs come from which natural animal, and what part of that animal. A reference library of plants and animals of Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras is often as important as the archaeology monographs of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Iconography is thus the study of meaning in art. In Maya studies, iconography is the analysis of meaning of the designs and symbols, identification of the clothing and accessories, recognition of the name, rank, and meaning of the deities and mythical personages, and discussion of the situation.
Situation is usually the cosmological framework or state of being.
The state of being may be life after death, trance, or under the influence of various potent native stimulants. Maya art and archaeology has been the subject matter of thirty years of photography of pre-Columbian antiquities throughout Mesoamerica to form the F.L.A.A.R. Photo Archive. This research resource includes over 40,000 slides and negatives of Maya art, architecture, and related tropical flora and fauna of prehispanic Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras. In the United States the study of Maya art takes place either within a Department of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, Institute of Art History, or a museum. The F.L.A.A.R. Photo Archive is entering its fourth decade devoted to finding and photographing Maya art whereever it may be in the world.