Aztec Daily Lives Focus of Anthropology Lecture

January 23, 2015

Join the LAII and the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology on Thursday, January 29, 2015, for a special presentation with Dr. Frances Berdan, who will speak on "Aztec Daily Life: From the Everyday to the Spectacular." The event will take place in the Hibben Center, Room 105, at 4:00 p.m. It is free and open to the public. For reference, please see the event flyer.

Berdan is Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Co-director of the Laboratory for Ancient Materials Analysis at California State University San Bernardino. She specializes in the ethnohistory and archaeology of Aztec-period and Colonial Mexico. Berdan has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books and over 100 articles. Her solely authored books include Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory (2014) and The Aztecs of Central Mexico (2nd ed., 2005); her co-authored books include The Codex Mendoza (4 vols., 1992), Ethnic Identity in Nahua Mesoamerica (2008), Aztec Imperial Strategies (1996), and The Postclassic Mesoamerican World (edited, 2003). She is currently co-authoring a book on Aztec daily life and continues her research on Aztec-period feather and stone mosaics.

In this presentation, Berdan will consider the complicated world of the Aztecs: "The Aztec world was a complicated world. There were rulers and farmers, priests and artisans, merchants and courtesans, scribes and slaves, and on and on. Indeed, Aztec life was a mosaic of different types of people engaging in different activities, living in specialized places, enjoying different rights, and experiencing different obligations. How did people wend their way around this varied world? Through artifacts and historical documents we will take a look at three Aztec lives: a spinner and weaver of cotton cloth, a featherworker, and a temple priest."