Event 1: Museum of Man

For my first event of this course, I decided to go to the Museum of Man. I was able to see two exhibits: the Mayans and Instruments of Torture. The exhibit on the Mayans not only correlates with Desma course material, but it also relates to my History 20 course which I am also taking right now as well. I had not been to the Museum of Man in a very long time, and was pleasantly surprised at all the new exhibits which included the Mayans and instruments of torture.

The Mayans were a very advanced society that came up with a creation myth as well as a calendar. Their society can be related to what we have learned about in the section of combining math with art. In this picture, we see the hieroglyphic inscription of the Stela K which describes the calendar. It states that their start date was in 3114 BC, and had an end date of December 21 2012. This calendar, even though it was not exact, was important because it was the first time people in Mesoamerica were keeping track of the days and years. However the Mayan’s calendar is slightly off to ours, containing 360 days. For an ancient civilization, these mathematical advances were quite impressive.

On this Stela C sculpture, the Mayans were able to combine their mathematical advances with their artwork. The artwork of this sculpture is very beautiful containing their Gods and also relating it to their mathematical data, or their calendar. This shows that even in ancient society, humans were combining art and science into one unit.

While at the Museum of Man, I also attended the Instruments of Torture exhibit. Pictures were prohibited, so the only photo I was able to get was one at the entrance. This exhibit was very gory, as well as incredibly sad. While looking at the instruments of torture, I saw how these devices of torture connected with both art and technology. I was able to see different torture instruments from a wide variety of time periods, and I saw how technology has progressively changed over the years. Here is a photo of a chair where people were tortured in the 1700’s.

Now in modern times, torture devices have changed, however they are still similar to ones back then. This improvement of torture devices, can be compared to technology, and how technological advances change over time. Even though these torture devices are indeed terrible and horrific devices, they still do show art in a very depressing way. These torture devices were art because mathematical calculations had to be in order to form these instruments.

Here is a picture as proof that I attended these exhibits at the Museum of Man in San Diego: