Bernal y García Pimentel, Ignacio (1910–1992)

Ignacio Bernal y García Pimentel (b. 13 February 1910; d. 24 January 1992), Mexican archaeologist. Born in Paris, Bernal came from a family of illustrious Mexican historians: he was the grandson of Luis García Pimentel and the great-grandson of Joaquín García Icazbalceta. In 1943 he joined Alfonso Caso in the Monte Albán excavations and began his lifelong interest in the archaeology of Oaxaca. Bernal received a doctorate from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1949. His books Urnas de Oaxaca (1952, with Caso) and La cerámica de Monte Albán (1967, with Caso and Jorge Acosta) established the foundations of Oaxaca archaeology. From 1949 to the 1960s he directed excavations at seven sites in Oaxaca, including Yagul and Dainzú. In 1962 he was chosen the first director of the Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia; he retired in 1976. Despite a heavy schedule of teaching and administration, Bernal produced 270 publications.

See alsoArchaeologyxml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Among Bernal's most important publications are Bibliografía de arqueología y etnografía: Mesoamérica y el norte de México 1514–1960 (1962); Mexico Before Cortez, translated by Willis Barnstone (1963); "Archaeological Synthesis of Oaxaca," in Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 3, edited by G. R. Willey (1965), pp. 788-813; "The Mixtecs in the Archaeology of the Valley of Oaxaca," in Ancient Oaxaca, edited by John Paddock (1966), pp. 345-366; The Olmec World, translated by Doris Heyden and Fernando Horcasitas (1969); The Ballplayers of Dainzú, with Andy Seuffert, translated by Carolyn B. Czitrom (1979). See also Wig-berto Jiménez Moreno, "Ignacio Bernal," in Notas mesoamericanas, no. 10 (1987); Kent V. Flannery, "Ignacio Bernal," in American Antiquity 59, no. 1 (1994): 72-76.

Additional Bibliography

Bernal y García Pimentel, Ignacio. Apuntes para la historia de la infraestructura en México. México: Banco Nacional de Obras y Servicios Públicos, 1998.

                                        Michael D. Lind