The Copan Sculpture Museum: Ancient Maya Artistry in Stucco and Stone (Peabody Museum)
The Copan Sculpture Museumnot only gives the reader a scholar's view of conceiving, mapping, and building a museum, it bites your curiosity and makes you want to learn more about the Maya and the people who study them. Barbara Fash gathered an outstanding team around this project, from world-famous archaeologists and epigraphers to local people who loved the project from its inception. This refreshing and informative diary of a wonderful collection and museum reads like an adventure tale and is a lesson for scholars in any time or place. (Maria Teresa Uriarte Castañeda, Professor of Art History and Director of the Precolumbian Mural Painting Project, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)The Maya site of Copan has long been known for its spectacular stone sculpture. Barbara Fash's new book places these powerful works of art within a fascinating broader cultural context, drawing upon recent advances in archaeological and epigraphic research. Generously illustrated, the volume is accessible to the nonspecialist and indispensable to anyone interested in the art of the ancient Americas. (Joanne Pillsbury, Director of Pre-Columbian Studies, Dumbarton Oaks)This excellent book is highly recommended to visitors to the Copan Sculpture Museum and professional scholars alike. It is also a terrific guide to the museum—and so much more. In readily accessible prose, Barbara Fash skillfully uses discussions of the sculpture and architecture of Copan to illuminate important new understandings of the ancient Maya world. (Jeremy A. Sabloff, President, Santa Fe Institute)