Proskouriakoff, Tatiana A., 1909-1985

Tat’yana Avenirovna Proskuriakova (Татья́на Авени́ровна Проскуряко́ва) was a Russian-American Mayanist scholar and archaeologist who contributed to the deciphering of Maya hieroglyphs. Proskouriakoff was born in Tomsk, Siberia, a daughter of aristocrats. Her family traveled to the United States in late 1915, when her father was sent to supervise the manufacture and sale of weapons to Russia. Proskouriakoff attended Pennsylvania State University and graduated in 1930 with a bachelor of science degree in architecture.

Proskouriakoff struggled to find a job in architecture during the Great Depression. Attaining access to the Penn Museum, she volunteered to draw for one of the curators there. Her work impressed the archaeologist Linton Satterthwaite, who then invited Proskouriakoff to join his 1936 expedition to Piedras Negras in northwestern Guatemala. Over the next few years Proskouriakoff produced a series of reconstructive drawings depicting ancient Mayan cities. Further expeditions and in-the-field drawings allowed her to study the diversity of the architectural styles in Honduras, Mexico, and Guatemala. Her famous sketches were first published as An Album of Maya Architecture in 1946. Proskouriakoff’s second book, A Study of Classic Maya Sculpture (1950), offered a formal analysis of the motifs of Mayan art. She developed the method of style dating stelae (freestanding carved stone monuments) that permitted the placement in time of all monuments with or without decipherable dates. She charted changes in art styles during a 600-year span.

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