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Sculptors Of The Realm: Classic Maya Artists' Signatures And Sculptural Style During The Reign Of The Piedras Negras Ruler 7, John Ellis Montgomery

Art & Art History ETDs

The discovery of hieroglyphic artists' signatures on monuments of the Classic Maya represents a turning point for the study of Precolum­bian art. As key elements in the retrieval of artists from long-standing conditions of anonymity, artists' signatures theoretically afford the scholar an opportunity to follow the careers and sculptural repertoire of individual artists, allowing recognition of the artist's style over time and on unsigned monuments. However. while various studies have tried to identify individual sculptors solely on the basis of style, to date no pro­ject working in the medium of stone monuments has explored the rela­tionship between signatures and style, …