All lectures are at the Royal Academy from 6.30-7.30pm. Tickets are £12 (£6 students) and include exhibition entry and a drink.

Friday 21 March
A Journey to the Aztec Underworld
Leonardo López Luján, senior researcher at the Museo del Templo Mayor in Mexico City talks about some recent archaeological excavations at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, in particular the discovery of the impressive ceramic sculptures of Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec God of Death. Looking at their original function, he explains a termination ritual involving the pouring of human blood over sculptures, and discusses the importance of Death Gods in Aztec religion.

Friday 28 March
Aztec Sacred Landscapes
The Aztecs and their neighbours saw the dominant forms of the land and seasonal phenomena as primary sacred entities. Richard Townsend, Curator of Amerindian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, will illustrate how the city and the country became linked in a ramifying network of temples, monuments and natural features, where rituals expressed an ancient dialogue confirming the bond of human society and the larger order of nature.

Friday 4 April
I’m a singer and I make God laugh’. Native religious painting and sculpture in C16 Mexico
Eleanor Wake, Lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, explores connections between art and song in the Aztec world. Focusing on religious art of the early post-conquest period, together with examples of devotional song-poems, she examines how the act of painting was likened to the act of singing, and how Aztec artists combined these expressions in their attempts to convey the Christian divine.

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