John S. Henderson. 1997. The World of the Ancient Maya. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. ISBN 0-8014-8284-4 (paper). 268 pages, plus 61 pages of notes, references, and an index.
"Myriad threads intertwine in the tapestry of the Maya cultural tradition; their colors blend subtly to represent many themes. We cannot achieve a full understanding of the processes by which Maya civilization came into being by pulling out a few bright threads. True insight depends on the laborious unraveling of many historical strands."
With these evocative words, John Henderson closes his introduction, and begins the second edition of The World of the Ancient Maya; and throughout the chapters that follow he interweaves archaeology, linguistics, architecture, and literature together to present what is perhaps not the whole cloth of Maya society, but certainly tantalizing bits of fabric.
The first three chapters set the stage for the remainder of the book, introducing the Maya as they appeared to the Mesoamerican world and to the Spanish invaders of the 16th century. Henderson spends some amount of energy on describing the various sources of information available on the Maya--written and archaeological--and the biases inherent in the material and how to resolve them. To provide understanding of the enormous amount of Maya literature destroyed by the Spanish, Henderson quotes the 16th century Spanish bishop of Yucatan: "We found a large number of books in these characters, and, as they contained nothing in which there were not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction." It caused this reader not a little affliction myself.
The first three chapters set the stage for the remainder of the book, introducing the Maya as they appeared to the Mesoamerican world and to the Spanish invaders of the 16th century. Henderson spends some amount of energy on describing the various sources of information available on the Maya--written and archaeological--and the biases inherent in the material and how to resolve them. To provide understanding of the enormous amount of Maya literature destroyed by the Spanish, Henderson quotes the 16th century Spanish bishop of Yucatan: "We found a large number of books in these characters, and, as they contained nothing in which there were not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction." It caused this reader not a little affliction myself.
The next six chapters include detailed chronological information on the Maya, including the rulers, sites, subsistence, architecture, art, language, politics, and economics of day-to-day life. The final chapter, entitled "Perspectives on the Maya," resets the Maya as a civilization of the world, comparing them to the other great civilizations of Mesoamerica and across space and time. The ideas currently under debate--the explanation of the Maya collapse [so-called] at the end of the Classic period, the even more intriguing reasons for the rise of the Maya civilization, and the understanding of the Maya frontier--are all given reflection here.
Lots of black and white photographs, plenty of maps and eleven color plates grace this book. In The World of the Ancient Maya, the author provides a broad level introduction to a sophisticated and elegant world, obscured by events and the passage of time, but fortunately not completely lost to us.
Lots of black and white photographs, plenty of maps and eleven color plates grace this book. In The World of the Ancient Maya, the author provides a broad level introduction to a sophisticated and elegant world, obscured by events and the passage of time, but fortunately not completely lost to us.
