New Additions to the Merle Greene Robertson Digital Collection of Maya Rubbings
The Doris Z. Stone Latin American Library and Research Center at Tulane University is pleased to announce the recent addition of images to the Merle Greene Robertson Maya Rubbings Collection of monument rubbings from the archaeological sites of Piedras Negras, Yaxchilan, and Tikal.
Available via the Tulane University Digital Library, the digital collection currently features more than 100 images of rubbings and line drawings created by Robertson to record and preserve ancient Maya monument and architectural art and hieroglyphic texts carved in stone or wood. This body of work provides a window into the history, ideology, ceremonial life, and politics of an elite class who ruled over city-states during the height of ancient Maya civilization during the centuries 200-900 of the current era.
Merle Greene Robertson (1913–2011) was an art historian and archaeologist who enjoyed a 40-year long career making life-sized copies of ancient Maya carvings recording them with ink and rice-paper techniques so their content could be preserved. Her entire research collection, including the rubbings, line drawings, photographs, field diaries, and accompanying materials documenting many of the major sites within the ancient Maya heartland is housed at The Doris Z. Stone Latin American Library and Research Center.
The digital collection of Maya rubbings is part of a continuing collaboration between the Doris Stone LAL Research Center and an international group of scholars and institutions building the online Classic Maya Text Repository, Mayan-READ publication platform, and a Unicode font for Maya hieroglyphic script described in more detail here.
Click HERE to view the Maya rubbings digital collection.
