Lecture Abstract; AVOCADOS in Mayan Art, Iconography and Diet
Posted February 25, 2020
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Native wild avocado, coyo, Aldea las Victorias, Municipio San Cristobal Verapaz, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala,Feb 2020. Photograph by Pokomchi Mayan plant scout Norma Estefany Cho Cu with a Google Pixel 3XL provided her courtesy of a donation by Scott Forsythe. |
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Avocados as a royal fruit on the sides of the sarcophagus of Palenque and wild Avocados in rural Maya villages today totally different in size and shape.
Dr Nicholas Hellmuth, FLAAR (USA) and FLAAR Mesoamerica (Guatemala).
The Maya king of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico had royal relatives pictured on the sides of his sarcophagus. Each royal personage sprouts into a fruit: one is a “Royal Avocado Personage.” Several epigraphers have suggested a Mayan calendrical hieroglyph elsewhere shows a sprouting avocado seed. Indeed, the area around Pusilhá, Belize, is called the Avocado Kingdom. An introduction to the art and iconography of avocados in Classic Maya art will be an introduction to our long-term research interests in the diversity of size, shape, and species of avocados in Guatemala, especially southern Alta Verapaz and adjacent northern Baja Verapaz. This lecture will show native avocados still today being sold in Pokomchi Mayan villages and Q’eqchi’ Mayan villages that are totally different in size and shape than the Hass avocados of a supermarket around the world. Avocado flowers change sex depending on the time of day, but until we can do macro photography of these flowers in time-lapse as they change sex, we will mention this but not focus on it. Our primary goal is to show the diversity of size and shape of Mayan avocados in Guatemala, to document the presence of avocados in Classic Maya art, and to remind the world of the role of eminent botanist Wilson Popenoe in finding and documenting wild avocados of Mexico and Guatemala and helping create what today is the Hass avocado, sold by tons in supermarkets around the world.
Dr Nicholas (Hellmuth) will be presenting this lecture on the diverse size, shape, and different species of native avocados of Guatemala (especially from their homeland of Baja Verapaz and Alta Verapaz) at Casa Popenoe, Antigua Guatemala, 9:30am, Saturday April 25, 2020. The invitation to speak at this event is courtesy of Martín Fernández-Ordóñez, Curador de Casa Popenoe in Antigua Guatemala, as part of their Festival del Aguacate.
Even though so far not one coronavirus noted for Guatemala, the university and Casa Popenoe have understandably decided to not hold the avocado event in April. |
Dr Wilson Popenoe was an eminent botanist worked with avocados throughout Mexico and especially Guatemala for much of his life. Casa Popenoe is part of UFM (Universidad Francisco Marroquin). The digital imaging/digital printing offices of FLAAR were located at UFM in Guatemala City circa 2001-2005. Special thanks to Michelle Berkowitz for introducing Dr. Nicholas to this particular Casa Popenoe avocado event.
