Merle Greene Robertson (August 30, 1913 – April 22, 2011) was an American artist,
art historian
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
, archaeologist, lecturer and
Mayanist
A Mayanist ( es, mayista) is a scholar specialising in research and study of the Mesoamerican pre-Columbian Maya civilisation. This discipline should not be confused with Mayanism, a collection of New Age beliefs about the ancient Maya.
Mayan ...
researcher, renowned for her extensive work towards the investigation and preservation of the art, iconography, and writing of the
pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...
Maya civilization
The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, archit ...
of
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
. She is most famous for her rubbings of Maya carved stelae, sculpture, and carved stone, particularly at the Maya sites of
Tikal
Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-C ...
and
Palenque
Palenque (; Yucatec Maya language, Yucatec Maya: ), also anciently known in the Itza Language as Lakamhaʼ ("Big Water or Big Waters"), was a Maya city City-state, state in southern Mexico that perished in the 8th century. The Palenque ruins dat ...
.
Early life and education
Robertson was born in 1913 in the small town of
Miles City, Montana
Miles City ( chy, Ma'xemâhoévé'ho'eno) is a city in and the county seat of Custer County, Montana, United States. The population was 8,354 at the 2020 census.
History
After the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, the U.S. Army created fo ...
to Ada Emma Foote and Darrell Irving McCann, but she moved to
Great Falls, Montana
Great Falls is the third most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Cascade County. The population was 60,442 according to the 2020 census. The city covers an area of and is the principal city of the Great Falls, M ...
as a small child. Here she became greatly interested in Native American culture and even learned Indian sign language from Blackfoot Indian chiefs her father was close friends with.
But more importantly, in Great Falls she met the artist
Charles M. Russell who spent many afternoons teaching Merle how to paint. She moved to
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
, as a teenager and completed high school there and attended the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
.
Adulthood
Merle started working as a commercial artist and gold leaf window painter; during the summers she worked at Camp Tapawingo. Following her graduation, Merle married her college boyfriend Wallace McNeill Greene. The couple was married for thirteen years and had two children, David and Barbara. However, the marriage dissolved when Merle found out her husband had participated in multiple affairs throughout the years. After the divorce, Merle and her children moved to California, where she began teaching at San Rafael Military Academy. There is where she first met Bob Robertson, the dean, who she would marry later on. She and Mr. Robertson traveled to El Salvador to visit cadets Quinonez, Escalon and Sagrera and learn about salvadorean archeology. She later decided to go back to school and moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
She earned her Master's of Fine Arts from the
University of Guanajuato
The Universidad de Guanajuato (in English, the University of Guanajuato) is a university based in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, made up of about 33,828 students in programs ranging from high school level to the doctorate level. Over 17,046 of ...
, where she studied watercolors, oils, photography, and mural painting from one of Mexico's top artists, James Pinto.
After completing her MFA, Merle began working on the Tikal Project with the University of Pennsylvania in 1961.
She spent three summers drawing the architecture of the
Central Acropolis. She also started her famous rubbings at this time, making the art form a way to document and preserve the information on Maya relief sculptures.
While she was there, it was suggested that she travel through Guatemala and record stelae at other sites.
While Merle carved out a path for herself as a Mayanist she continued to teach school in the states. She and her husband Bob both worked at the Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, California; this is where Merle first began to instill her love of the Maya into young students. She taught a Mesoamerican Archaeology class and she took many of her students on expeditions into the jungles of Central America. Some of her students even went on to study archaeology at college and pursue a career studying the Maya, one of the best examples being Mayanist
Arlen F. Chase.
Contribution to Maya Studies
Rubbings
Initially trained as an artist, Robertson pioneered the technique of taking rubbings from Maya monumental sculptures and inscriptions, making over 4,000 of these over a career spanning four decades (2,000 being monuments). In many cases these rubbings have preserved features of the artworks which have since deteriorated or even disappeared, through the actions of the environment or looters. This method was first used by the ancient Chinese but Merle further developed and refined the process. She developed two techniques using two different forms of ink on rice paper. The type of ink that was chosen was based on the environmental conditions and the nature of the item being recorded. Merle, along with Mayanist
Tatiana Proskouriakoff
Tat'yana Avenirovna Proskuriakova (russian: Татья́на Авени́ровна Проскуряко́ва) ( – August 30, 1985) was a Russian-American Mayanist scholar and archaeologist who contributed significantly to the deciphering of ...
and Edith Ricketson, paved the way for women to enter the field of Maya archaeology. She was the first woman to join the Tikal Project, at a time where it was generally understood that women were not to work on archaeological projects.
Merle is most well known for her work at Palenque. In the 1980s, she undertook a project to document and record in detail all the sculptural art.
This led to the instrumentation of the series of Mayanist conferences known as the
Palenque Round Table
Palenque (; Yucatec Maya language, Yucatec Maya: ), also anciently known in the Itza Language as Lakamhaʼ ("Big Water or Big Waters"), was a Maya city City-state, state in southern Mexico that perished in the 8th century. The Palenque ruins dat ...
s, which have produced some of the most significant breakthroughs in Maya research and the
epigraphic decipherment of the ancient
Maya script
Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...
. The meetings started in December 1973 and ended in June of 1993.
A total of 10 of the proceedings of the round table meetings have been published as volumes.
Merle also famously worked at Chichen Itza for many years. Here she also created a large, encompassing report of all the sculptures at the site.
Not only did she record the hieroglyphic and iconographic inscriptions, she also interpreted the work through the eyes of the authors. This showed her unique perspective as an artist rather than a formally trained archaeologist.
In 1982, Merle founded the Pre-Columbian Art Institute, which publishes the PARI Journal.
This non-profit organization supported the research of Mesoamerican art, epigraphy, and iconography and funded archaeological excavations at Palenque under the Cross Group Project.
In 2004, Robertson received the
Orden del Pop The Orden del Pop (''Order of the Mat'') is an annual award bestowed by the Museo Popol Vuh at Guatemala, Guatemala's Universidad Francisco Marroquín. Created in 1998, the Orden del Pop recognises "the work of individuals who have made significant ...
Award from Guatemala's
Museo Popol Vuh
The Museo Popol Vuh (''Popol Vuh Museum'') is home to one of the major collections of Maya art in the world. It is located on the campus of the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Zone 10, Guatemala City and is known for its extensive collection o ...
in recognition of her decades of work preserving the country's Maya cultural heritage through her detailed documentation of Maya monuments and
hieroglyphic writing. This Instituto de Nacional de Anthropologia e Historia (
INAH) also presented Merle with the
Order of the Aztec Eagle
The Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle ( es, Orden Mexicana del Águila Azteca) forms part of the Mexican Honours System and is the highest Mexican order awarded to foreigners in the country.
History
It was created by decree on December 29, 1933 ...
and named her Honorary President of the Palenque Round Tables which have since continued.
Notes
References
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External links
Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute (PARI) founded by Robertson
at Mesoweb. Contains online database of selected reproductions and some history.
Merle Greene Robertson receives the Orden del Pop video of award ceremony, Museo Popol Vuh (
WMV
Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology ...
format)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robertson, Merle Greene
Mayanists
American Mesoamericanists
Women Mesoamericanists
Mesoamerican epigraphers
American women artists
20th-century Mesoamericanists
People from Great Falls, Montana
1913 births
2011 deaths
People from Miles City, Montana
American women archaeologists
21st-century American women