Pierre Colas

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Pierre Robert Colas
Born(1976-01-13)January 13, 1976
German
Alma mater• University of Hamburg (1999, MA)
• Bonn and Cologne universities (2004, PhD)
Known for• study of Maya names and titles
• ethnographic study of Belizean Maya communities
• Maya cave archaeology
Scientific career
FieldsMayanist scholar (archaeology, epigraphy, ethnography)
InstitutionsVanderbilt University (2006–08, assistant prof. in anthropology)
Doctoral advisorNikolai Grube

Pierre Robert Colas (January 13, 1976 – August 26, 2008) was a German

academic conferences and workshops on the Maya, as a workshop tutor, presenter of original papers, and editor of several conference proceedings and reports.[1]

Since 2006 Colas held a position as

College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.[2]

On the evening of August 26, 2008 Dr. Colas was

shot dead in his Nashville home. He was 32 years old.[3]

Early life and studies

Colas was born 1976 in London, England. As the son of a German diplomat,[4] he lived in several countries as a child, including a period spent in Mexico where he acquired his abiding interest and fascination with Maya civilization and culture.[5] Colas and his family later resettled in Reinbek (a suburb of Hamburg), Germany where he completed his secondary education and abitur exams in 1995 at Sachsenwaldschule, Reinbek. He then enrolled at the University of Hamburg, graduating in 1999 with an M.A. in anthropology and Mesoamericanist studies.[6]

Colas pursued doctorate studies in anthropology at

PhD in Anthropology the same year, in 2004.[10]

Career and research

While a doctoral student at Bonn, Colas was awarded two stipendary grants from the

sociolinguistic
research among contemporary Maya communities, and continued on after he relocated to Nashville in 2006 to accept a position as assistant professor in anthropology at Vanderbilt University. While at Vanderbilt the focus of his ethnographic study of the Maya in Belize was an investigation of "the effects of globalization and Christian fundamentalism on the acquisition of the Yucatec Maya language in Belize".

Death

On the evening of August 26, 2008, professor Colas was fatally shot at his home in

East Nashville
. His younger sister Marie Christine Colas who was visiting from Switzerland was also critically wounded in the same incident; she died later in hospital from her injuries. Nashville police reported they had arrested and then charged four suspects with homicide in relation to the shooting, three males and one female. A fifth suspect was being sought. Police advised that robbery appeared as the likely motive at that stage in the investigations, and although two of the suspects lived a couple of blocks away they were otherwise unknown to Colas. By early 2013, the murderer and several of his accomplices had been convicted to lifetime imprisonment.

Notes

  1. ^ Sachse (2008)
  2. ^ Howard (2008)
  3. ^ See reports in Howard (2008), Peebles (2008), and Stults (2008).
  4. ^ Seiler (2008)
  5. ^ Seiler (2008)
  6. ^ Sachse (2008)
  7. ^ Entitled: "Sinn und Bedeutung klassischer Maya-Personennamen: typologische Analyse von Anthroponymphrasen in den Hieroglypheninschriften der klassischen Maya-Kultur als Beitrag zur allgemeinen Onomastik" (in English, Sense and meaning of Classic Maya personal names: a typological analysis of anthroponymic phrases in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Classic Maya culture, as a contribution to general onomastic studies).
  8. ^ Professor Grube was to describe Colas as "...einer der bedeutendsten jungen Maya-Forscher" (one of the most important young Maya researchers). Quote as reproduced in Seiler (2008).
  9. ^ Issued as volume 15 in the monographic series of titles in Mesoamerican studies, Acta Mesoamericana.
  10. ^ Sachse (2008)
  11. ^ Institut für Altamerikanistik und Ethnologie (2008)
  12. ^ See Institut für Altamerikanistik und Ethnologie (2008), Sachse (2008). The scholarship programme is named for the early 20th century German mathematician, Emmy Noether.

References

  • Guenter, Stanley (September 2008). "In Memoriam: Pierre Robert Colas". Mesoweb Reports & News. Mesoweb. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
  • OCLC 61660268
    .
  • Howard, Kate (August 28, 2008). "Clues sought in shooting death of popular VU professor".
    Gannett Company. Retrieved 2008-09-02. [dead link
    ]
  • Institut für Altamerikanistik und Ethnologie [IAE] (2008). "Pierre Robert Colas (13. Januar 1976 – 26. August 2008)". Aktuelles aus dem IAE (in German). IAE-University of Bonn. Archived from the original on October 15, 2007. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
  • Peebles, Jennifer (August 21, 2008). "Swiss student, sister of slain Vandy prof, dies".
    Gannett Company. Retrieved 2008-09-02. [dead link
    ]
  • Sachse, Frauke (2008). "Pierre Robert Colas [obituary]". Wayeb News. European Association of Mayanists [WAYEB]. Archived from the original on 2008-09-06. Retrieved 2008-09-02.
  • Seiler, Johannes (September 2, 2008). "Bonner Maya-Forscher in Nashville erschossen". General-Anzeiger (in German). Bonn: Verlag H. Neusser. Archived from the original on 2008-09-06. Retrieved 2008-09-04.
  • Stults, Rachel (August 29, 2008). "UPDATED: Police to charge four in murder of Vanderbilt professor".
    Gannett Company. Retrieved 2008-09-02. [dead link
    ]

External links
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