Dr. Boone is the Martha and Donald Robertson Professor of Latin American art at Tulane University, where she has taught for 6 years. Her courses include the colonial art of Latin America as well as Mesoamerican art, the Aztecs, and the painted books of Mexico. She has lectured widely on Mesoamerican art, archaeology, and writing systems. She has traveled extensively in Mexico and Central America, serving at times as a study leader for Smithsonian Institution Adventure Tours to Mexico and Guatamala.

Prior to arriving at Tulane, for fifteen years Dr. Boone was Director of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., a Harvard University research center. Dumbarton Oaks is renowned for its superb collection of pre-Columbian art, for its support of research fellows, and for the conferences and lectures it holds annually.

Dr. Boone received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin. She has held research fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. In 1991 The Mexican Government awarded her the Order of the Aztec Eagle for her contributions to Mesoamerican scholarship.

With more than 50 research publications to her credit Dr. Boone has been featured in two films about the Aztecs as well. She is the author of “The Codex Magliabechiano” an edition of a 16th-century Aztec “Book of Life” and “Incarnations of the Aztec Supernatural: The Image of Huitzilopochtli in Mexico and Europe,” focussing on the Aztec's supreme deity. Her book “The Aztec World,” from the Smithsonial series “Exploring the Ancient World” offers an insightful introduction to Aztec thought and way of life for the general reader.

She has edited eight of the proceedings of the Dumbarton Oaks conferences on pre-Columtian topics, including “The Southeast Classic Maya Zone,” “The Aztec Templo Mayor” and “Collecting the Pre-Columbian Past”. She is the editor for “Art and Iconography of Late Post-Classic Central Mexico” and “Writing Without Words; Alternative Literatacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes.

Her most recent book, “Stories in Red and Black:Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs” explains how the ancient Mexicans conceptualized the past and painted their histories in images. Dr. Boone is currently writing a companion volume on the religious and divinatory books of Mexico.

• GODS, RULERS AND RITUAL
  The Maya gods controlled much of the natural world: they brought and withheld rain, caused the crops to rise or wither and brought health and illness. It fell largely to the rulers and priests to appease and propitiate these deities in order to assure continued prosperity. Dr. Boone explains the Maya pantheon and the role of ritual in Maya political and religious life.

• WHAT'S HAPPENING AT CHICHEN ITZA, TULUM AND COBA
  An illustrated close-up of three archaeological wonders of the Maya.

• WHAT'S HAPPENING AT TIKAL, QUIRIGUA AND COPAN
  An illustrated close-up of three of the greatest Maya sites in Guatemala and Honduras.

• MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS: DECODING THE MAYA CODE
  A hands-on workshop for passengers to learn how to interpret the Maya glyphs. Workbooks will be provided; bring along a pen or pencil.

• THE MAYA EXPERIENCE - PART I AND PART II
  Roundtable discussions

• 'ONE-ON-ONE' WITH PASSENGERS