Any consideration of ancient Mesoamerica, and more particularly the lowland Maya region, must include the great site of Tikal, Guatemala. Excavation and research were conducted at Tikal under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the government of Guatemala from 1956 through 1969. The painstaking analysis of the results of those years of fieldwork continues, and the results will be published in a projected total of 39 final reports. This volume includes facsimile editions of the first 11 numbers of the final reports, on various topics relevant to the early excavations at Tikal, carried out by the University Museum. University Museum Monograph 64

The Great Maya center of Tikal, in Guatemala, is famous for its well-preserved architecture. This book presents descriptions of six structures that belong to the Tikal Project category "standing architecture," that is, though partially collapsed, some features of these buildings remain in place and accessible without excavation. These structures were surveyed with little or no excavation as part of the Tikal Project Standing Architecture Survey. This report is the primary record of these structures in Tikal's urban landscape, and it provides clear, precise, and usable architectural analyses for Mayanists, archaeologists, art historians, architectural historians, urbanists, and those interested in construction techniques and in the uses of Maya buildings. Universtiy Museum Monograph, 148

Tikal Report 27 presents artifacts and associated unworked materials recovered by the University of Pennsylvania Museum's Tikal Project of 1956-1969.

Although Quiriguá and its magnificent carved monuments have been recorded and studied by scholars over the past century, little archaeological data were available until recently. From 1973 through 1979, the University Museum sponsored investigations at this major lowland Maya site in eastern Guatemala. The aims of the work were to document a basic chronology, to determine the nature and pattern of structures, and to test hypotheses concerning the origins, location, and demise of Quiriguá. University Museum Monograph, 37

Intensive excavations in settlement areas within greater Tikal generated far more than an understanding of the complex gradations of social classes at this lowland Maya site. Identification of a specific architectural pattern associated with relatively small shrines on the eastern side of certain residential groups, and of a distinctive mortuary program, provides a means by which a "plaza plan" can be predicted using good site maps alone. This discovery enabled archaeologists to predict locations for high-status burials in residential as well as in ceremonial areas. Application of these findings at sites beyond Tikal has been demonstrated to be successful throughout the region and even beyond the Maya heartland. Identification of this "plaza plan" also has led us to recognize nine other architectural group plans at Tikal, providing a model for planning excavation strategies and developing theories of cultural change at Tikal and other Maya sites. University Museum Monograph, 104

This volume includes the editorial “The absconded subject of Pop,” by Thomas Crow; “Enlivening the soul in Chinese tombs,” by Wu Hung; “On the ‘true body’ of Huineng,” by Michele Matteini; “Apparition painting,” by Yukio Lippit; “Immanence out of sight,” by Joyce Cheng; “Absconding in plain sight,” by Roberta Bonetti; “Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen,” by Megan E. O’Neil; “Style and substance, or why the Cacaxtla paintings were buried,” by Claudia Brittenham; “The Parthenon frieze,” by Clemente Marconi; “Roma sotterranea and the biogenesis of New Jerusalem,” by Irina Oryshkevich; “Out of sight, yet still in place,” by Minou Schraven; “Behind closed doors,” by Melissa R. Katz; “Moving eyes,” by Bissera V. Pentcheva; “‘A secret kind of charm not to be expressed or discerned,’” by Rebecca Zorach; “Ivory towers,” by Richard Taws; “Boxed in,” by Miranda Lash; “A concrete experience of nothing,” by William S. Smith; “Believing in art,” by Irene V. Small; “Repositories of the unconditional,” by Gabriele Guercio; “From micro/macrocosm to the aesthetics of ruins and waste-bodies,” by Jeanette Zwingenberger; “Are shadows transparent?” by Roberto Casati; “Invisibility of the digital,” by Boris Groys; “Des formes et des catégories,” by Remo Guidieri; and “Further comments on ‘Absconding,’” by Francesco Pellizzi.