History of Art and Architecture

Faculty Affiliate Stephen Houston speaks on Getty podcast

Houston Figure
Mayuy’s signatures on his sculptures. A) Laxtunich Lintel 1:I1–J1, Guatemala, AD 773. B) Mayuy Series Lintel 1:J2–J3, Guatemala, AD 783. © Drawings by Stephen Houston.

HIAA faculty affiliate, Professor Stephen Houston (Anthropology and HIAA, Director of Early Cultures), speaks on the latest installment of the Art + Ideas podcast, produced by the Getty. In this episode, recorded on January 18, 2022, Houston discusses the book he edited, A Maya Universe in Stone (Getty Press, 2021), with President of the J. Paul Getty Trust, James Cuno.

At the heart of Houston's new book is an intricately carved limestone lintel (a horizontal support above a doorway), made in the first millennium CE by an artisan named Mayuy. In his conversation with Cuno, Houston examines the political and aesthetic meanings of the lintel's carvings, the role of such structures in ancient Maya civilizations, and the historical looting and displacement of Mayan artificacts and landmarks across present-day Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. He says, "It really is a ripping yarn if there ever was one: derring do, lost cities, and a trove of masterworks!" 

Maya Book
A Maya Universe in Stone, ed. Stephen Houston, Getty Press, 2021.

The podcast, and the text, travel widely across time, exploring the life of this lintel and similar Maya objects in their original historical and geographic contexts, as well as their afterlives in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Deparmtent congratulates Professor Houston on his publication, and encourages you to listen on the Getty Podcast