Vital Voids

"Anchored by, and regularly returning to, a single object--the decorated dish known as the "Resurrection Plate" of Late Classic Maya origin--this book is a wide-ranging consideration of the real and symbolic values attributed to cavities, holes, and voids in Mesoamerican material culture. Finegold argues that these spaces were broadly understood as conduits of vital and creative forces and material abundance, a characterization that appears to have persisted across Mesoamerica throughout several millennia of cultural development, and which applies to holes in a variety of media. Finegold uses the Resurrection Plate, which has a drilled hole in the center of it, as a constant throughout the manuscript to think through the meaning and uses of this material technique. He goes on to tie this feature to how peoples throughout Mesoamerica use and symbolically articulate things such as caves in the physical landscape, the piercing of human flesh, etc., in ritual activity"--