Tatiana Proskouriakoff

Tatiana Proskouriakoff (January 23, 1909 - 1985) was a Mayanist illustrator who also contributed significantly to the deciphering of Maya heiroglyphs.

She was born in Tomsk, Russia and emigrated to the USA with her family in 1915. She spent a year studying at the University of Pennsylvania, before graduating from the Pennsylvania State University in 1930. Initially educated as an architect, she later went on to work for Linton Satterthwaite and for the Peabody Museum at the Maya site of Piedras Negras in 1936-37. She made a reconstruction drawing of the Piedras Negras Acropolis on her return to Philadelphia.

When Sylvanus Morley saw the panoramic reconstruction on a visit to the Museum, he was impressed, and prevailed upon her to make more, for the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Unable to get the institution to hire her, he raised funds to enable Proskouriakoff to travel to Copán and Yucatán, which she did in 1939. Returning after she completed the drawings, she was given the post of a research associate at the Institution in the early '40s.

She soon became involved in Maya hieroglyphs and made significant contributions to the understanding of Mayan written language. Her greatest contribution was considered the breakthrough for Maya hieroglyphic decipherment. She discovered that the writing on the monumental stela and other buildings was actually historical, dealing with the birth, accession, and death dates for the Maya rulers. Knowing the context of the inscriptions, Maya epigraphers were then able to decipher the hieroglyphs.

Awards and recognition

• Alfred V. Kidder Medal for eminence in American archaeology, 1962
• Woman of the Year by Penn State, 1971
• Order of the Quetzal, Guatemala's highest honor, 1984
• Honorary degrees from Tulane University and Pennsylvania State University

Bibliography

• An Album of Maya Architecture 1946
• Historical Implications of a Pattern of Dates at Piedras Negras, Guatemala American Antiquity XXV, 1960
• Lords of the Maya Realm Expedition Magazine IV(1) 1961
• Historical Data in the Inscriptions of Yaxchilan, Part 1 Estudios de Cultura Maya III, 1963
• Historical Data in the Inscriptions of Yaxchilan, Part 2 Estudios de Cultura Maya IV, 1964
• An Inscription on a Jade Probably Carved at Piedras Negras Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology II, 1944
• Jades from the Cenote of Sacrifice
• Maya History
• Graphic designs on Mesoamerican pottery
• Maya calendar round dates such as 9 Ahau 17 Mol
• The Maya : An Introduction (with L S Spotnitz, J A Sabloff and G R Willey)
• Study of Classic Maya Sculpture
• Varieties of classic central Veracruz sculpture

External links

• Proskouriakoff Biography from the University of South Florida Anthropology Department
• Proskouriakoff Biography from Minnesota State University
• Morley Hires Tatiana Proskouriakoff (PDF). Villela, Khristaan D. (2000); Precolumbian Art Research Institute Journal