For the past 20 years, Maya research has been one of the most exciting fields in all of archaeology. Researchers have discovered great new cities and fantastic tombs. They have deciphered Maya writing. On a less spectacular but perhaps more important level, they have come to understand Maya settlement patterns and agricultural systems. The World of the Ancient Maya by Cornell University’s John Henderson, one of the leading Maya scholars, captures the excitement of recent research and much more, taking the reader from the earliest archaeological traces, to the great city-states, to the Spanish conquest of the 16th century.
Born in the tropical rainforests of Central America, the Maya pushed New World civilization to new peaks. They were the only fully literate people of the Americas. Their knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, and calendars was extraordinary. Their architectural achievements and artistic accomplishments were unmatched. We now know the names of many of the great kings who ruled powerful cities like Tikal, Copan, Palenque, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza. This was an extremely complex society, Henderson explains, and it did not simply collapse. Indeed, even though the great city-states of the southern lowlands disappeared in a little-understood catastrophe, other areas continued to prosper until the time of Spanish arrival. Today, Maya people doing many of the same things they have done for two thousand years populate large areas of Guatemala and southern Mexico.
The World of the Ancient Maya first appeared in 1981, but this edition is mostly new material. It is richly illustrated with many new photographs and maps. Concise, well-written, and easy to understand, it is the best view of the Maya world available today. – Mark Michel
