Published to accompany a traveling exhibition organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that will be displayed at the Dallas Museum of Art (February 2006) and the New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (June 2006), this lavishly illustrated book documents the development of royal authority among the Maya. Beginning with the Olmec, the precursors of the Maya, monumental Mesoamerica art portrays human rulers in the guise of deities, especially the Maize God. Devine kings are a worldwide phenomenon, and this volume examines their development in the Middle and Late Preclassic periods (ca. 900 B.C. to A.D. 250) coinciding with the rise of the Maya city-states.
Like the Old World kings, the Maya rulers surrounded themselves with all the trappings of kingship—crowns, thrones, and religious symbols. These manifestations are amply displayed in their art, leaving little or no doubt of the power invested in these rulers.
In the Lords of Creation the exhibition curators, Virginia Fields and Dorie Reents-Budet, have assembled essays from some 20 Maya experts that explore the many aspects of royal development. They have also assembled some 152 kingly objects from museums in the United States, Mesoamerica, Europe, and Japan for the exhibition that are beautifully illustrated and described here.
Lords of Creation is much more than just an exhibition catalog. It is also a definitive work on the development of Mesoamerican kingship and its many aspects. The institution of royalty in Mesoamerica began as early as 1500 B.C. and lasted until Cortez executed that last Aztec emperor in A.D. 1522. This volume is a major addition to its understanding.