Oswaldo Chinchilla

Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos is an archaeologist specializing on the complex societies of ancient Mesoamerica. His research interests include Mesoamerican art, religion, and writing, the study of ancient urbanism and social complexity with special focus on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, and the history of archaeology in Guatemala. He has conducted extensive field research, particularly at the ancient city of Cotzumalhuapa, where he conducts a long-term field research project. In 2011, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on Cotzumalhuapa art and archaeology. His books, Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya (2017) and Imágenes de la Mitología Maya (2011) offer innovative views and methodological breakthroughs in the study of ancient Maya religion and art. He recently contributed a volume on the Cotzumalhuapa sculptures, published in the prestigious series Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions (2017). Other books include Cotzumalguapa, la Ciudad Arqueológica: El Baúl-Bilbao-El Castillo (2012), and the edited volume Arqueología Subacuática: Amatitlán, Atitlán (2011). He also coedited The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing (2001), and The Technology of Maya Civilization: Political Economy and Beyond in Lithic Studies (2011).

Selected Publications

2017. Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya. Yale University Press, New Haven. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300207170/art-and-myth-ancient-maya

2017. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Volume 10, Part 1: Cotzumalhuapa. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780873658683

2016. Human Sacrifice and Divine Nourishment in Mesoamerica: The Iconography of Cacao on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. Ancient Mesoamerica 27:361-375.

2015. Myth, Ritual, and Human Sacrifice at Tikal, Guatemala (coauthored by Oswaldo Chinchilla, Vera Tiesler, Oswaldo Gómez, and T. Douglas Price). Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25:187-210.

2012. Cotzumalguapa: La ciudad arqueológica. El Baúl, Bilbao, El Castillo. F&G Editores, Guatemala.

2011. Imágenes de la mitología Maya. Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala.