Pierre Colas
Pierre Robert Colas was a German anthropologist, archaeologist and epigrapher. As a Mayanist scholar who investigated the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica, Colas was well known for his contributions to the study of the Maya writing system, and his archaeological work on cave sites used by the Maya. His analysis of onomastics—personal naming practices and titles of rank—in Classic-era Maya inscriptions was the first major publication of its kind. Colas also conducted ethnographic studies and surveys among contemporary Maya communities living in Belize. In Europe, he had close involvement with the organisation of academic conferences and workshops on the Maya, as a workshop tutor, presenter of original papers, and editor of several conference proceedings and reports.
Since 2006 Colas held a position as assistant professor in the Anthropology Department of the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
On the evening of August 26, 2008 Dr. Colas was shot dead in his Nashville home. He was 32 years old.
Early life and studies
Colas was born 1976 in London, England. As the son of a German diplomat, 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. Colas and his family later resettled in Reinbek, 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.Colas pursued doctorate studies in anthropology at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, where his major studies focussed on the Classic-era Maya civilization and its writing system, the Maya script. He also undertook minor course studies in Egyptology and Latin American history at the University of Cologne. His doctoral dissertation was on the topic of Classical Maya personal names, rulership titles and glyphs, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Nikolai Grube. This was the first major survey and analysis on the subject, and was published in book form by German academic publishers Verlag Anton Saurwein. Colas successfully defended his dissertation and was awarded a PhD in Anthropology the same year, in 2004.