Saturday, September 25, 2010

Congratulations to Linda Manzanilla

Yesterday, Dr. Linda Manzanilla, the preeminent Mexican archaeologist, was invested with an honorary doctorate (honoris causa) from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is probably best known for her work at Teotihuacan, but she has worked in the Maya area (at Coba and, I think, elsewhere) and also in South America.

She's a delightful colleague as well as an outstanding scholar, and so it is a particular pleasure to congratulate her.

Before writing this, I consulted her biography on that bastion of accuracy, the Wikipedia, and discovered two interesting facts, 1) she was born in New York, and 2) she is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. As both women and foreigners are rarely elected, her selection is a remarkable achievement. Being born in New York is much easier, provided your mother is there too.