Beatriz Barba Ahuactzin was born in 1928 in Mexico City. Both of her parents were teachers, and from a young age Barba wanted to become a teacher. It was one of the few employment opportunities available to women in her era, as it allowed them to work for five hours, but then return home to care for their children. She earned a degree at the Escuela Nacional de Maestros, in 1949, with a thesis which addressed the spinal deformities of students caused by inadequate structure of the furniture they used. Wanting to further her knowledge of history and prepare as a secondary teacher she enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in 1950 and while in school met the archaeologist Román Piña Chán, who she would later marry and with whom she would have three daughters.
Career
Barba began her career teaching primary school in 1950, at the primary school, M-255 "Emiliano Zapata" while she worked her thesis, Tlapacoya: un sitio preclásico de transición. Though she experienced some discrimination when doing field work, with workers not wanting to take orders from a woman, her husband was supportive. Since Mexican women did not gain the right to vote until 1953, Barba understood that she was engaging in a mostly masculine field. In 1955, she graduated cum laude with a master's degree in anthropology and became the "first Mexican woman to obtain the title of archaeologist". Her thesis examined the social development and religious practices of the Tlatilco culture at the Tlapacoyaarchaeological site. Between 1957 and 1960, she taught history at Albert Einstein Secondary School N° 9, while continuing her studies and earning a degree as an ethnologist from ENAH in 1960. She also worked as an adjunct professor at ENAH beginning in 1958 and conducted research in conjunction with her husband at sites in Tlatilco and in Valle de Guadalupe, Northern Jalisco. In 1965, Barba founded the National Museum of Cultures in the building which had previously served as a mint, and then as the Anthropological Museum. When a new building was created in 1964 for the National Museum of Anthropology, the site was left vacant. Barba and professor, Julio César Olivé, pressed for the conversion of the building into a museum featuring world cultures. She served as the deputy director of the museum from 1965 to 1976 and served as a guest lecturer in anthropology at the University of Guadalajara between 1972 and 1979 and from 1980, was a permanent lecturer for ENAH. In 1982, Barba earned a master's degree in anthropological science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and her PhD two years later. Her doctoral thesis, Ambiente social y mentalidad mágica en México, las bases del pensamiento mágico en el México precortesiano explored the Mexican concept of magic before Cortés′ conquest. Rather than the demonic worship, depicted by Spaniards in their chronicles of Mexican culture, Barba's anthropological approach found that civilizations in ancient Mesoamerica had a reverence for the sacred, a devotion to creating books to pass on their knowledge, and an appreciation of the expanse of space. In 1984, her husband fell during an excavation at the Becán archaeological site and became paralyzed. Though initially distraught, encouragement by Barba and colleagues, encouraged Piña to return to his work writing fundamental texts on Mexican archaeology until his 2001 death. Barba was appointed as a National Researcher Level II by the Secretariat of Public Education in 1985 and in 1991 was the recipient of the Ignacio Altamirano Medal, presented by and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. From 1995, she led the Permanent Seminar on Iconography for the National Institute of Anthropology and History. In 2002, she became the founding president of the Mexican Academy of Anthropological Sciences. In 2013, INAH paid homage to her career as a pioneering archaeologist and anthropologist upon her retirement. Barba, who was still teaching privately from her home was engaged in the compilation of her husband's archives for the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche.
