Heather Hurst, Associate Chair

Professor of Anthropology

Office: Bolton 352
E-mail:  hhurst@skidmore.edu
Office hours: Wednesdays 2:30-3:30 p.m.

Heather Hurst specializes in Mesoamerican archaeology with a focus on the study of art production, iconography, materials analysis, identity, and the role of art in society. She has ongoing fieldwork on Maya mural painting in Guatemala, as well as research on Olmec rock art in Mexico. Her publications and illustrated volumes include The Murals of San Bartolo, El Petén, Guatemala. Part 1, The North Wall, and Part I1, The West Wall. She collaborates with chemists, conservators and epigraphers, resulting in recent articles including, “An Early Maya Calendar Record from San Bartolo, Guatemala,” “Strategies for 14C Dating the Oxtotitlán Cave Paintings, Guerrero, Mexico,” and “Maya Codex Book Production and the Politics of Expertise.” Dr. Hurst earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University. Her courses include Mesoamerican Archaeology, Archaeological Field Methods, Imaging/Imagining the Past, and Built Environments.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, 2009
• Master of Philosophy, Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, 2006
• Bachelor of Arts, Department of Art and Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, 1997

REGIONAL FOCUS

• Mesoamerica, particularly Maya Lowlands of Guatemala

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

• Mesoamerican Archaeology; Material Culture; Ritual; Iconography and Symbolism; Art Production; Mural Painting; Materials Analysis; Fragmentary Objects; Architecture; Archaeological Illustration; Archaeological Methods; Cultural Heritage
• Heather Hurst is director of the Proyecto Regional Arqueológico San Bartolo-Xultun, Guatemala. Learn more at xultun.org

COURSES

• Anthropology of the Human Past (AN102)
• Archaeological Field Methods (AN202)
• Mesoamerican Archaeology I: Olmec to Maya (AN205)
• Mesoamerican Archaeology II: Aztecs (AN252)
• Built Environments: Archaeology of Architecture (AN328)
• Imaging & Imagining the Past: Visual Representation in Anthropology (AN329)
• Murals of Latin America Past and Present (AN352)

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

• 2022  D. Stuart, H. Hurst, B. Beltrán, W. Saturno. An Early Maya Calendar Record from San Bartolo, Guatemala. Science Advances 8(15): 1-12. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abl9290  
• 2020   H. Hurst. Maya Mural Painting. In The Maya World, edited by Scott R. Hutson and Traci Ardren. Routledge, pp. 578-598.
• 2020   Clarke, M. E., A. Sharpe, E. M. Hannigan, M. E. Carden, G. Velásquez Luna, B. Beltrán, and H. Hurst. Revisiting the Past: Material Negotiations between the Classic Maya and an Entombed Sweat Bath at Xultun, Guatemala. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 31(1):67-94.
• 2019   H. Hurst, L. Ashby, M. Pohl, C. von Nagy. The artistic practice of cave painting at Oxtotitlán, Guerrero, Mexico. In Murals of the Americas, Mayer Symposia Series, Denver Art Museum, edited by V. Lyall, pp. 14-41.
• 2017   Russ, J., Pohl, M. D., von Nagy, C. L., Steelman, K. L., Hurst, H., Ashby, L., Schmidt, P., Padilla Gutiérrez, E. F., and Rowe, M. W., “Strategies for ¹⁴C Dating the Oxtotitlán Cave Paintings, Guerrero, Mexico” Advances in Archaeological Practice 5(2):170-183. doi:10.1017/aap.2016.10
• 2017   Saturno, W., Rossi, F., Stuart, D., and H. Hurst, “A Maya curia regis: Evidence for a hierarchical ritual order at Xultun, Guatemala.” Ancient Mesoamerica, doi:10.1017/S09565361 16000432.
• 2016   Rossi, F., Hurst, H., and W. Saturno, “El taller de los sabios. La producción de los murales y códices en Xultún, Guatemala."Arqueología Mexicana. 2016(137):68-75.
• 2015   Hurst, H. and C. O’Grady, “Maya Mural Art as Collaboration: Verifying Artists Hands at San Bartolo, Guatemala through Pigment and Plaster Composition.” In Beyond Iconography: Materials, Methods, and Meaning in Ancient Surface Decoration. Selected Papers in Ancient Art and Architecture, edited by S. Lepinski and S. McFadden, pp. 35-57. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America.
• 2015   Rossi, F., W. Saturno, H. Hurst, “Maya Codex Book Production and the Politics of Expertise: Archaeology of a Classic Period Household at Xultun, Guatemala.” American Anthropologist 117(1): 116-132.
• 2015   Saturno, W., H. Hurst, F. Rossi, and D. Stuart, “To Set Before the King: Residential Mural Painting at Xultun, Guatemala.” Antiquity 89(143): 122-136.

EXHIBITIONS OF ARTWORK

• Hurst’s illustrations have been exhibited widely in the United States, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD; the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; the Kimbell Museum of Art, Fort Worth, TX; and the St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas TX; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, among others.
• Illustrations of the San Bartolo and Bonampak murals by Hurst have been included in blockbuster exhibitions installed at the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Museum of Science, Boston, and the San Diego Museum of Natural History; in university museums including, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Boston, MA, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA, and the Peabody Museum, Yale University, New Haven, CT; and displayed internationally in Guatemala, Germany, Austria, China, Canada, Brazil, and the Netherlands among others.
• Watercolors by Hurst are held in the Permanent Collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, and the Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY.

SELECTED FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND HONORS

• Hurst has been recognized through several prestigious awards including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Burkhardt Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.
• Research at San Bartolo-Xultun is funded through competitive grants under Hurst as PI including National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research award (#RZ51575), a Digital Humanities award (#HAA-280996-21), and an Archaeology and Ethnography award (#RFW-286709-22), funding from National Geographic Society, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and the Archaeological Institute of America.
• Discoveries, publications, and current initiatives have garnered prizes from the International Council on Monuments and Sites, selected among “Top 10 Discoveries of 2022,” by Archaeology magazine, and the recipient of the 2023 International Archaeological Discovery Award “Khaled al-Assad.”
• Hurst received the Alumni Scholar Award, Periclean Honor Society, Skidmore College, 2006