Ancient Mexico in Colour; Photographs by Irmgard Groth [With] 60 Hand-Mounted Colour Plates by: Bernal, Ignacio and Irmgard Groth
Hardcover. New York , McGraw-Hill, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, large folio, 159 pages, index, 60 beautiful tipped-in color plates of ancient Mexican sites after photographs by Irmgard Groth. Original gilt-lettered burgundy cloth in original color pictorial dust jacket that has a small chip to top of spine. The author of this book, Ignacio Bernal (1910 - 1992), was an eminent Mexican anthropologist and archaeologist. Bernal excavated much of Monte Alban, originally starting as a student of Alfonso Caso, and later led major archeological projects at Teotihuacan. In 1965 he excavated Dainzu. He was the Director of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology 1962-68 (at the time of this publication) and again 1970-77. In 1965, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bernal was awarded the Premio Nacional in 1969. He was a founding member of the Third World Academy of Sciences in 1983. This book includes 60 hand-mounted colour plates and 1 map (all framable); each chosen by Bernal photographed by Mrs. Irmgard Groth, a gifted photographer whose special field was Mexican archaeology. In these plates we see the extraordinary sculpture of the Omecs; the Pyramid of the Moon of Teotihuacan; the Maya temples of Palenque; the Pyramid of the Niches of Tajin on the Gulf Coast; the temples at the great city of Chichen Itza; the gold ornaments of the Mixtecs at Monte Alban; the temple carved by the Aztecs out of the Cliffside at Malinalco; and many other buildings and artifacts, the surviving testimonials - sometimes exquisite, sometimes aw-inspiring - to the greatness of a long-vanished culture.