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Origins of the MMARP

The intellectual origins of the MMARP emerged from a set of reflections about the nature of scholarly collaboration. One important influence was the historian of religions Charles H. Long (1926–2020), one of Carrasco’s teachers at the University of Chicago, who often remarked that “a university is a good conversation.” By this he meant that the advancement of knowledge depends on sustained dialogue among scholars asking fundamental questions of one another: What is religion? What is Mesoamerica? What is power, and how do societies use it?

Carrasco’s experience at large academic meetings such as the American Academy of Religion and the International Congress of Americanists revealed the limitations of conventional conference formats, where meaningful exchanges were often brief and fragmented. The need for a different kind of scholarly conversation—one that would allow for sustained collaboration—became increasingly clear.

Another important influence came from Mircea Eliade (1907–1986), who suggested that the rich documentary record of Mesoamerican cultures—pictorial manuscripts, colonial chronicles, architecture, sculpture, and ritual traditions—should be brought into deeper dialogue with the academic discipline known as the History of Religions. Without such methodological integration, Eliade believed, both fields would fail to reach their full interpretive potential.

These ideas gradually took shape between 1978 and 1984, when the Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project was formally established with the support of Raphael and Fletcher Lee Moses. Their generosity helped create a space dedicated to sustained scholarly conversation and collaborative research in Mesoamerican studies. In recognition of this support, the archive was named the Raphael and Fletcher Lee Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project.

Following its establishment, the project developed its early activities at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where Davíd Carrasco organized conferences and collaborative research gatherings that brought together scholars from multiple disciplines. When Carrasco joined the faculty at Princeton University in 1993, the archive moved with him and continued to expand its network of scholars and research initiatives. In 2001, Carrasco was appointed to the faculty at Harvard University, and the archive was relocated to Cambridge, where it is now housed at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Developing an Interdisciplinary Method

These conversations led Carrasco to develop what became the distinctive methodological approach of the MMARP. During the research for his doctoral dissertation, “Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire” (1977), Carrasco encountered the complex body of primary sources related to what anthropologist H. B. Nicholson called the “Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan” tradition. The diversity and complexity of these materials suggested that two complementary methods were necessary.

First, the study of Mesoamerican religions required a stronger engagement with the History of Religions tradition associated with scholars such as Joachim Wach, whose work emphasized the systematic study of religious experience as expressed in historical and cultural sources. Second, the interpretation of Mesoamerican evidence required what Carrasco and his colleagues described as an ensemble approach, in which scholars from different disciplines would work collaboratively to analyze the archaeological, historical, artistic, and ritual records.

Discussions with scholars such as Charles Long, Mircea Eliade, Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, and the archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni reinforced the importance of this collaborative model. Aveni emphasized that only a team of researchers representing multiple disciplines could adequately interpret the complexity of Mesoamerican civilizations.

Another important intellectual influence came from the urban historian Paul Wheatley, whose comparative studies of ceremonial centers and early cities provided new perspectives on the relationship between cosmology, urban form, and political organization.

Collaboration with Mexican Scholars

A central principle of the MMARP from its inception has been close collaboration with Mexican scholars. Researchers associated with major archaeological projects such as the Templo Mayor excavations, as well as scholars working at sites such as Tlatelolco and Teotihuacan, played a vital role in shaping the project’s research agenda. Their fieldwork, training, and scholarship were producing new knowledge about the religious and cultural history of Mesoamerica, and their participation ensured that Mexican perspectives would be central to the project’s work.

Although these ideas gradually took shape between 1978 and 1984, the intellectual foundations of the MMARP were already evident in a conference held in 1979 at the University of Colorado. This meeting brought together leading scholars and marked the beginning of the collaborative conversations that would define the project.

Two individuals were especially influential during these early years. Art historian John D. Hoag, a professor at the University of Colorado, strongly supported Carrasco’s efforts to build a new interdisciplinary conversation about Mesoamerica. Hoag welcomed visiting scholars, hosted gatherings, and shared his extensive library with colleagues, helping to establish Boulder as an important center for Mesoamerican studies during the years when the project was based in Colorado.

Another key figure was the Spanish archaeologist Pedro Armillas, whose pioneering work at sites such as Xochicalco and Teotihuacan had helped transform the study of Mesoamerican archaeology. Armillas mentored Carrasco in the history of Mexican archaeology and enthusiastically supported the idea of assembling an interdisciplinary group of scholars. It was Armillas who introduced Carrasco to Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, whose leadership of the Templo Mayor Project became a major inspiration for the MMARP.

Major Collaborative Projects

As the MMARP’s conferences and publications gained recognition, scholars and museum professionals began exploring ways to share this research with a wider public. One major result was the international exhibition Aztec: The World of Moctezuma, organized in collaboration with Mexican archaeologists and mounted at the Denver Museum of Natural History in 1992–1993. The exhibition attracted nearly 800,000 visitors and reflected the project’s interdisciplinary methodology by integrating archaeological discoveries, historical interpretation, and the study of religion and cosmology.

Soon afterward, Oxford University Press invited Carrasco to serve as editor in chief of the multi-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. With the assistance of Scott Sessions, who served as development editor, Carrasco assembled a distinguished editorial and advisory board that included many members of the MMARP scholarly network. The encyclopedia ultimately brought together contributions from more than 250 scholars representing eleven countries and provided a comprehensive reference work on the cultural, religious, and political history of Mesoamerica from ancient times to the present.

Continuing Intellectual Conversation

Projects such as the exhibition Aztec: The World of Moctezuma and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures demonstrate the productivity of the MMARP’s ensemble approach. The first extended scholarly conversations to a broader public audience, while the second created a lasting reference work that continues to shape the field of Mesoamerican studies.

Over time, the MMARP has benefited from collaborations with many institutions and scholarly organizations. Yet its distinctive contribution has been the sustained dialogue among researchers working across disciplinary boundaries. By bringing together archaeology, art history, anthropology, and the History of Religions, the project has sought to illuminate the role of cosmology, ritual, and cultural transformation in Mesoamerican civilizations from prehistory to the present.