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Paleolithic art is the one characteristic that distinguishes the artifacts at the MAYA PALEOLITHIC MUSEUM OF ART AND ARTIFACTS. Almost all of the approximately fifteen hundred objects have every surface covered with art. This fact makes our assemblage of stone, the largest paleolithic art collection in the world. The subjects portrayed are anthropomorphic (people), zoomorphic (animals), and a Maya motif with scenes from the Popol Vuh being played out among the stars of the Maya cosmos. About ten percent of the artifacts portray a single astronomical event, which occurred between the 4th and the 27th of July in the year 1054. Except for comets, most cosmic events are transient occurrences that are visible for only one or two nights. For almost a month, the supernova of 1054 blazed in both the night and day time skies. About half of the artifacts in the collection are ceremonial stones or trade tokens, which to most people appear to be just ordinary stones. Polymorphic artifacts, as their name suggests are artifacts that contain multiple images or forms, a hologram in stone. The above artifact ORC#4OR-As01 is one of the best examples of this type, which has five zoomorphic forms and contains the Maya glyphs for both the sun and the moon. The turtle and the peccary (a pig native to Central America) are two zoomorphic representations for the Maya constellations in the star group we call Orion. For this reason this broad tip projectile point has been classified under astronomy instead of hunting. The artifact is a ground-stone slate or volcanic vitrified black sand, which has a high iron content and gives the artifact its rusty color. The artifact's dimensions are 6cmX4cmX1cm (2.25inX1.75inXx0.375in). The classification system on this web site documents the location of the discovery site for each artifact. The first three letters indicate the closest city to the site, next is the site number followed by the two letters for the state. The next two letters are the gallery, to which the artifact is first assigned and the artifact's number. Since this is a digital museum, an artifact may appear in more than one gallery. Framed picture like images are photographs that physically have been framed and are hanging on display. The people who created these objects of art were of the same tribal confederacy, even though their site locations are separated by hundreds or thousands of miles. In the Pacific Northwest, the Chinookan of the lower Columbia River built ocean going canoes in which, fifty paddlers would spend up to two weeks hunting whales. How far would such a band of warriors follow a migrating pod of whales? The question of Maya origin will remain open for the present time. The purpose of this web site is to share these artifacts, no matter who created them, with the world and to find collaboration among experts. Another reason for the existence of this web site is to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1991. In the process, we will create a permanent catalogue of these artifacts, which documents them with an identifying image, describes where and how they where found, and explains their relevant historical attributes. Presently there are over fifteen hundred artifacts in this collection, which will take time to classify, photograph and add to the museum. Most of these artifacts have images or artwork decorating them and each is a work of art in itself. Many appear to have dates in the Maya long count form. I hope these images are worth that proverbial thousand words and call for help from those who are interested in being a part of an educational web museum and/or co-authoring an article. Now that the web site is established, the first galleries that I will be working on to complete are the caches, since they have a fixed number of artifacts. In the future on the page called New Additions, new images will appear so that, those who have been to the site before may go directly to the new artifacts. |
