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Merilee Grindle

Merilee Grindle is an emeritus professor of international development at Harvard University and the author of, most recently, In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico’s Ancient Civilizations.

An illustration of the Aztec calendar stone surrounds a young portrait of anthropologist Zelia Nuttall. “Mrs. Nuttall’s investigations of the Mexican calendar appear to furnish for the first time a satisfactory key,” wrote one leading scholar.

The Globe-Trotting Scholar Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aztecs

Anthropologist Zelia Nuttall transformed the way we think of ancient Mesoamerica