Tulane Maya Symposium Keynote Address and Reception

Join us for the keynote event of the 18th annual Tulane Maya Symposium, Mapping Inequality: Lessons from Central Mexico with Barbara E. Mundy, Robertson Chair in Latin American Art, Tulane University. A reception for all attendees will follow the lecture.

Painted manuscripts of Central Mexico often present images of historic migrations, led by elites, and genealogies of ruling families, set against a backdrop of territory. Cartography, then, offers a visual record of the inequality implicit in social hierarchies. At the same time, as physical objects that had to be created and cared for, maps depended upon the involvement of a range of social actors and were shaped over time by evolving practices. In this talk, I turn to a selection of maps from Central Mexico to show levels of social complexity implicated in objects that seem, on their surfaces, to offer direct records of inequality.