ABSTRACT
The Maya World brings together over 60 authors, representing the fields of archaeology, art history, epigraphy, geography, and ethnography, who explore cutting-edge research on every major facet of the ancient Maya and all sub-regions within the Maya world.
The Maya world, which covers Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, contains over a hundred ancient sites that are open to tourism, eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and many thousands more that have been dug or await investigation. In addition to captivating the lay public, the ancient Maya have attracted scores of major interdisciplinary research expeditions and hundreds of smaller projects going back to the 19th century, making them one of the best-known ancient cultures. The Maya World explores their renowned writing system, towering stone pyramids, exquisitely painted murals, and elaborate funerary tombs as well as their creative agricultural strategies, complex social, economic, and political relationships, widespread interactions with other societies, and remarkable cultural resilience in the face of historical ruptures.
This is an invaluable reference volume for scholars of the ancient Maya, including archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|4 pages
Beginnings
chapter Chapter Three|14 pages
Public architecture and the rise of complexity in the Middle Preclassic
part II|120 pages
Bodies
part III|5 pages
Landscapes
chapter Chapter Seventeen|21 pages
Ancient Maya rurality
chapter Chapter Eighteen|16 pages
Lakamha: the place of “Big Waters”
chapter Chapter Nineteen|20 pages
The Maya city of Caracol, Belize
part IV|111 pages
Relations
chapter Chapter Twenty-Six|19 pages
The politics of conflict
part V|172 pages
Production
part VI|4 pages
Interactions
part VII|96 pages
Resilience, legacies, and transformations