Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:47:18.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Maya: revelation and re-evaluation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2015

Norman Hammond
Norman Hammond*
Affiliation:
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK, & Department of Archaeology, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston MA 02215–1406, USA (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Maya archaeology is flourishing; across three millennia, four countries and an impressive range of intellectual and practical approaches, the eight books under review here make that point well. One is the ninth edition of a deservedly successful book for a general readership, one the catalogue of the first Maya exhibition to be held in Britain in nearly half a century. A further volume deals with sites in the northern Maya lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, another with those in the eastern lowlands, the former British colony of Belize. Two are site-specific: the major city of El Perú-Waka’ in the southern lowland Maya heartland of El Petén, Guatemala, and the idiosyncratic élite centre of Cacaxtla in central highland Mexico where Maya influence on the famous murals is both striking and puzzling. Finally, two have a scientific bent: collections of papers on bioarchaeology/population studies and archaeoastronomy respectively. All draw their evidence, and their illustrations, largely from the Classic Period (AD 250–900), although there are forays into both the Preclassic (1200 BC–AD 250) and Postclassic (AD 900–1500+).

Type
Review
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 348 , December 2015 , pp. 1503 - 1510
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W.A. 1991. Site-planning principles and concepts of directionality among the ancient Maya. Latin American Antiquity 2: 199–226. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/972169 Google Scholar
Braswell, G. 2012. The ancient Maya of Mexico: reinterpreting the past of the northern Maya lowlands. Sheffield: Equinox.Google Scholar
Braswell, G. 2014. The Maya and their Central American neighbors: settlement patterns, architecture, hieroglyphic texts, and ceramics. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coe, M.D. 1962. Mexico. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Coggins, C.C. 1980. The shape of time: some political implications of a four-part figure. American Antiquity 45: 729–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/280144 Google Scholar
Estrada-Belli, F. 1999. The archaeology of complex societies in southeastern Pacific coastal Guatemala: a regional GIS approach (British Archaeological Reports International series 820). Oxford: Archaeopress.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, I. 1992. Corpus of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. Volume 4, part 2: Uxmal. Cambridge (MA): Peabody Museum, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Hammond, N. 1975. Lubaantun: a Classic Maya realm (Museum Monograph 2). Cambridge (MA): Peabody Museum, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Hendon, J.A. 2010. Houses in a landscape: memory and everyday life in Mesoamerica. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Houston, S.D. & Inomata, T.. 2009. The Classic Maya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McAnany, P.A. 2010. Ancestral Maya economics in archaeological perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, H. 1986. Space, text and gender: an anthropological study of the Marakwet of Kenya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology n.d. University of Florida Library. Available at: http://ufdc.ufl.edu (accessed 14 September 2015).Google Scholar
Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala n.d. Asociación Tikal. Available at: http://www.asociaciontikal.com/ (accessed 14 September 2015).Google Scholar
Smith, M. 2007. Form and meaning in the earliest cities: a new approach to ancient urban planning. Journal of Planning History 6: 3–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1538513206293713 Google Scholar
Stuart, D. & Stuart, G.. 2008. Palenque: eternal city of the Maya. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 2002. Modern social imaginaries. Public Culture 14: 91–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/08992363-14-1-91 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uriarte Castaneda, M.T. 2013. La pintura mural prehispánica en México, V: Cacaxtla Estudios (2 volumes). México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigacions Estéticas.Google Scholar