The Year To Go Mayan Event Calendar
2012 is The Year to Go Mayan. As we count down to the end of the
Mayan calendar on December 20, 2012, Hotel Maya will be
hosting a variety of events that highlight the traditions of the
Mayan culture. We hope you join us.
Mayan Symposium with Dr. Khristaan D. Villela
Saturday, May 19th
2-3pm
Hotel Maya will host Dr. Khristaan D. Villela, Research
Professor at University of New Mexico and Professor of Art History
at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, on May 19 from 2-3
p.m. in its ongoing Mayan lecture series.
Dr. Villela specializes in the art of Precolumbian
Mesoamerica and the history of the field of Precolumbian
studies.
CHOCOLATE: THE ANCIENT MAYA DRINK OF THE
GODS
Today chocolate is one of the
world's most valuable commodities. It is consumed as a beverage, as
a candy, and it is an important ingredient in many recipes, from
cakes and cookies to Mexican mole sauces. But long before
the modern-day empires of Hershey and Cadbury, more than two
thousand years ago, the ancient Maya of Mexico and Central America
grew, traded, and consumed great quantities of kakaw---as
they called chocolate---usually as a beverage mixed with honey and
chile peppers. In the Popol Vuh, a collection of ancient
Maya creation myths, the lightning god K'awiil split a primordial
mountain, revealing maize and chocolate, two of the most important
foods of the Maya and other native peoples of Mesoamerica. The Maya
nobility prepared and drank chocolate using special spouted and
cylindrical ceramic vessels, many of which have survived to the
present day with chocolate residues still inside. This lecture will
explore the history of chocolate in ancient Maya culture and
religion as it is depicted in the visual arts, discussed in Maya
hieroglyphic texts, and found in archaeological contexts.
Chocolate's scientific name, Theobroma cacao, meaning
"drink of the gods," closely matches how the Maya and other peoples
of ancient Mesoamerica thought of this sacred
foodstuff.
Mayan Movie Mondays
June through August
We will be hosting Mayan Movie Mondays starting in June through
August. Hotel Maya will show a feature film or documentary in Fuego
beginning at 8 p.m. each Monday for 13 weeks to include:
June 4 - "2012"
June 11 - "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull"
June 18 - "I am Legend"
June 25 - "Mystery of the Maya"
July 2 - "Attack of the Mayan Mummy"
July 9 - "Revelations of the Mayans 2012 and Beyond"
July 16 - "Kings of the Sun"
July 23 - "The Fountain"
July 30 - "The Ruins"
August 6 - "Beverly Hills Chihuahua"
August 13 - "Lost Treasure of the Maya"
August 20 - "Apocalypto"
August 27 - "Breaking the Maya Code"