Tag Archives: Maya

Ancient Maya and the Enduring Taste of Pumpkin Soup

We at AntiquityNOW love our food! Whether an ancient recipe or using ancient ingredients, these dishes continue to delight the palate and bring ancient times to life.  Here’s one example of how we at AntiquityNOW indulge.

Ancient Maya Pumpkin Soup

Mayan-pumpkin-soupStretching from the Yucatán Peninsula southward into Central America in a series of city-states (c 2500-1900 BCE to BCE-900 CE), the Maya civilization had a profound influence on civilization and its advancement.  Continue reading

KIDS’ BLOG! Today’s Art Inspired by the Ancient Maya and Aztec Civilizations

Monster Mash by Dan Fenelon

Monster Mash by Dan Fenelon

Dan Fenelon, AntiquityNOW’s Virtual Artist in Residence, looks to the past to feed his boundless imagination.  He reaches in to antiquity and plucks inspiration from many ancient cultures to create a new art that is both modern and timeless.  Two of the civilizations that inspire him are the Mayas and the Aztecs.  Both flourished for thousands of years and created some of the most beautiful and recognizable works of art and architecture. Continue reading

Welcome to Dan Fenelon, AntiquityNOW’s Artist-in-Residence

KachinaDan Fenelon’s art blends an infusion of pop, cartooning, modernism and tribalism along with an explosion of vibrant colors.

Influenced by cartoons from the time he was a child, his art has a whimsy and fantasy that can be embraced by children and adults alike.  The viewer becomes lost in a phantasmagorical world of dancing figures and prancing animals, floating skulls and geometric faces, curvilinear lines and mosaic-like backgrounds, ancient symbols resonating with a post-modern sensibility.  It’s a tangled web of delight and astonishment that lures you deep within this art form, and you emerge breathless from the netherworld of Dan’s imagination.

Look for upcoming announcements regarding our partnership with Dan.  And take a look at the video below to see Dan’s unique view of ancient imaginings.

KIDS’ BLOG! Hot Chocolate: Making Kids Happy for More Than 1,000 Years!

Image courtesy of anka @ happyhangaround

Image courtesy of anka @ happyhangaround

Do you love a cup of hot chocolate with lots of sweet marshmallows? Did you know that kids just like you drank hot chocolate over a thousand years ago?

The Maya people in Northern Belize were drinking hot chocolate as far back as 600 BCE.  Although many people think that the Mayas discovered chocolate, the Olmec people who lived in Mexico from 1500-400 BCE were actually drinking a chocolate concoction even earlier. Do you enjoy your food with some extra zing? In their book The History of Chocolate, Sophie and Michael Coe describe how  the Olmec crushed the cacao beans, mixed them with water and spices, and then added chilies and herbs for a spicy drink. Or maybe you would have enjoyed some of the other things the Olmec added to their chocolate, such as honey for a sweeter drink and also flavorings from flowers and vanilla. Continue reading