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A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya
Recent interpretation of Maya hieroglyphs has given the 1st written history of the New World as it existed before the European invasion. In this book, two of the 1st central figures in the effort to decode the glyphs, Linda Schele & David Freidel, detail this history. A Forest of Kings is the story of Maya kingship, from the beginning of its institution & the 1st great pyramid builders 2000 years ago to the decline of Maya civilization & its destruction by the Spanish. Here the great rulers of pre-Columbian civilization come to life again with the decipherment of their writing. At its height, Maya civilization flourished under great kings like Shield-Jaguar, who ruled for over 60 years, expanding his kingdom & building some of the most impressive works of architecture in the ancient world. Long placed on a mist-shrouded pedestal as austere, peaceful stargazers, Maya elites are now known to have been the rulers of populous, aggressive city-states.
Hailed as "a Rosetta stone of Maya civilization" (Brian M. Fagan, author of People of the Earth), A Forest of Kings is "a must for interested readers," says Evon Vogt, Harvard anthropology professor.
Hailed as "a Rosetta stone of Maya civilization" (Brian M. Fagan, author of People of the Earth), A Forest of Kings is "a must for interested readers," says Evon Vogt, Harvard anthropology professor.
552 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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2261 people want to read
About the author
Linda Schele
49 books6 followersLinda Schele was an American Mesoamerican archaeologist who was an expert in the field of Maya epigraphy and iconography. She played an invaluable role in the decipherment of much of the Maya hieroglyphs.
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May 11, 2019The joy of this book is that it was one of the first to be published after the major breakthrough in understanding the Maya script. No longer were we in the serene world of priestly astronomers but of the would be big beasts of the political jungle asserting their greatness, heritage and deeds on steles.
The obvious limitation is that as time moves on from publication, more is discovered and more is translated the more the views advanced in the book will be subject to revision.
However it tells of an interesting world. A city-state civilisation built out of the jungle that struggled to maintain political order in the face of an obscure environmental or ecological catastrophe. It's a nice update to Eric Thompson's The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization.
The big surprise was that understanding their script overturned understanding of the Maya world which because it was understood that they were interested in numbers and astronomy - many of their carved stelae marking significant dates, so it was thought they were cerebral astronomers their culture fixated upon the heavens, their written inscriptions revealed that their interest in dates and astronomy and conjunctions was in part political. All quite a change from Erich van Daniken who made a fine living claiming that the same inscriptions showed alien astronauts rather than aristocrats burning scraps of paper soaked in their own blood in the smoke of which they perceived dream visions of their ancestors and gods.
The obvious limitation is that as time moves on from publication, more is discovered and more is translated the more the views advanced in the book will be subject to revision.
However it tells of an interesting world. A city-state civilisation built out of the jungle that struggled to maintain political order in the face of an obscure environmental or ecological catastrophe. It's a nice update to Eric Thompson's The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization.
The big surprise was that understanding their script overturned understanding of the Maya world which because it was understood that they were interested in numbers and astronomy - many of their carved stelae marking significant dates, so it was thought they were cerebral astronomers their culture fixated upon the heavens, their written inscriptions revealed that their interest in dates and astronomy and conjunctions was in part political. All quite a change from Erich van Daniken who made a fine living claiming that the same inscriptions showed alien astronauts rather than aristocrats burning scraps of paper soaked in their own blood in the smoke of which they perceived dream visions of their ancestors and gods.
September 21, 2015
I visited the NE Yucatan three times in the 1990s, devoting most of my time to hiking the coast and, with the help of young Maya, trekking overland to ruins they'd tell me of. Preparatory to these trips I'd read some of the literature, much of it dated. This then is one of the first books I've read which purports to be based on the recent decoding of Mayan script. Armed with this new insight, Schele and Freidel tell a number of stories, histories really, of several Mayan centers and the people who dominated them.
Frankly, given the evidence they present (confronting my ignorance), I am skeptical. Their accounts seem just a bit too certain, their qualifications too muted. Their approach approaches the novelistic--and indeed the whole is punctuated by little illuminating fictions.
I would have been more comfortable with a more cautious, scholarly approach, on the one hand, or a more purely novelistic one, on the other.
On one point, though, they got me going, that being their repeated references to the vision quests through bloodletting. Apparently the Maya would do stuff life putting stingray barbs through their penises and tongues in order to obtain visionary access to spiritual realms. In the text itself the authors treat this as unremarkable, as though 'of course, such painful practices induce altered states of consciousness'. Well, that made no sense, so I went through the footnotes, all of them (and there are many), and found that there they amplified their descriptions by adducing pain, fasting and 'intoxication' as the causes of their visions. Now that made it seem a bit more plausible, but still left me wondering what the intoxicating agent(s) might have been. That is nowhere addressed.
Personally, I find both Egyptian and Mayan art to be 'trippy'. Both are very colorful, often as if self-illumined. Both delineate forms starkly. This is how things look to me--and to many others, from what I hear--under the influence. So, naturally, I wonder if it's common to find oneself in pseudo-MesoAmerican environments simply because of the overweening influence of the writings of Carlos Castaneda et alia or, more intriguingly, if it's because both we and our American (or Egyptian) ancestors took similar substances and had similar visions, visions which their cultures took seriously enough to represent in their art and religion.
I find it odd that the authors of this book didn't address this matter at all.
Frankly, given the evidence they present (confronting my ignorance), I am skeptical. Their accounts seem just a bit too certain, their qualifications too muted. Their approach approaches the novelistic--and indeed the whole is punctuated by little illuminating fictions.
I would have been more comfortable with a more cautious, scholarly approach, on the one hand, or a more purely novelistic one, on the other.
On one point, though, they got me going, that being their repeated references to the vision quests through bloodletting. Apparently the Maya would do stuff life putting stingray barbs through their penises and tongues in order to obtain visionary access to spiritual realms. In the text itself the authors treat this as unremarkable, as though 'of course, such painful practices induce altered states of consciousness'. Well, that made no sense, so I went through the footnotes, all of them (and there are many), and found that there they amplified their descriptions by adducing pain, fasting and 'intoxication' as the causes of their visions. Now that made it seem a bit more plausible, but still left me wondering what the intoxicating agent(s) might have been. That is nowhere addressed.
Personally, I find both Egyptian and Mayan art to be 'trippy'. Both are very colorful, often as if self-illumined. Both delineate forms starkly. This is how things look to me--and to many others, from what I hear--under the influence. So, naturally, I wonder if it's common to find oneself in pseudo-MesoAmerican environments simply because of the overweening influence of the writings of Carlos Castaneda et alia or, more intriguingly, if it's because both we and our American (or Egyptian) ancestors took similar substances and had similar visions, visions which their cultures took seriously enough to represent in their art and religion.
I find it odd that the authors of this book didn't address this matter at all.
October 31, 2017
Mayas come out of the woods
When I was a youth, people said the Mayas were the one peaceful civilization. As far as I knew, nobody could read their writing. I went to Copán about 50 years ago; the ruins impressed me, but I had not read anything about the Mayas. The silence and emptiness of the land where once a great city had stood remained in my mind. More recently, I have read a few books about the Maya, especially Demarest's "The Ancient Maya" about seven years back. I still feel that that volume is the best overall history. A FOREST OF KINGS is something else. It combines intensive analysis of Maya art, the translated inscriptions, and good archaeological guesswork to give the reader a most intensive "experience" if I may call it that. The book provides names and dates for a civilization that once seemed lost and mysterious.
The Maya certainly were not a peaceful civilization. In fact, their array of small kingdoms engaged in constant warfare and human sacrifice. When they wrote, they mostly recorded royal events, chronicled the passage of time, or boasted of their great victories. Schele and Freidel attempt to bring to life the events and personalities of the Maya world, from 200 BC to the arrival of the Spanish. The myriad reproductions of the Maya drawings, writings, and city plans by several modern artists is phenomenal. What a labor of love this book is! Each major chapter also contains a piece created from the authors' educated imagination of some event during the Maya centuries, whether at Palenque, Copán, Chichén Itzá, or Tikal.
I would say that it is not an easy read, though the language is mostly jargon-free. It's just the amount of detail which may overwhelm a reader who is not so familiar with the Maya or who doesn't need every date, every name, and every symbol. The art work on any number of buildings is described and analyzed. Their system of counting time is explained. We are familiar with Julius Caesar, with Charlemagne, with Ivan the Terrible, and even with Qin Shi Huangdi. How many Maya figures did you ever even hear of? After reading this book, some of them will stick in your mind forever. The Maya recorded many things on stelae, stone columns which the authors refer to as "tree stones". A forest of these tree-stones stood by many important buildings of the Maya ages. Now we can say that the Mayas have come out of the forest into our consciousness, thanks to these two authors.
When I was a youth, people said the Mayas were the one peaceful civilization. As far as I knew, nobody could read their writing. I went to Copán about 50 years ago; the ruins impressed me, but I had not read anything about the Mayas. The silence and emptiness of the land where once a great city had stood remained in my mind. More recently, I have read a few books about the Maya, especially Demarest's "The Ancient Maya" about seven years back. I still feel that that volume is the best overall history. A FOREST OF KINGS is something else. It combines intensive analysis of Maya art, the translated inscriptions, and good archaeological guesswork to give the reader a most intensive "experience" if I may call it that. The book provides names and dates for a civilization that once seemed lost and mysterious.
The Maya certainly were not a peaceful civilization. In fact, their array of small kingdoms engaged in constant warfare and human sacrifice. When they wrote, they mostly recorded royal events, chronicled the passage of time, or boasted of their great victories. Schele and Freidel attempt to bring to life the events and personalities of the Maya world, from 200 BC to the arrival of the Spanish. The myriad reproductions of the Maya drawings, writings, and city plans by several modern artists is phenomenal. What a labor of love this book is! Each major chapter also contains a piece created from the authors' educated imagination of some event during the Maya centuries, whether at Palenque, Copán, Chichén Itzá, or Tikal.
I would say that it is not an easy read, though the language is mostly jargon-free. It's just the amount of detail which may overwhelm a reader who is not so familiar with the Maya or who doesn't need every date, every name, and every symbol. The art work on any number of buildings is described and analyzed. Their system of counting time is explained. We are familiar with Julius Caesar, with Charlemagne, with Ivan the Terrible, and even with Qin Shi Huangdi. How many Maya figures did you ever even hear of? After reading this book, some of them will stick in your mind forever. The Maya recorded many things on stelae, stone columns which the authors refer to as "tree stones". A forest of these tree-stones stood by many important buildings of the Maya ages. Now we can say that the Mayas have come out of the forest into our consciousness, thanks to these two authors.
May 7, 2017
The book started off very slowly and made some assumptions that only Westerners would be reading this book. I also found it hard to believe that rain dance of the Mayans worked and that historians must treat those customs with respect. These things in the beginning almost made me give up on the book, but the later chapters became more and more professional and detailed. Once I had reached the middle of the book, I had a lot more respect for the author than at the beginning.
Other than these minor irritants, the book is very well written and presents a detailed account of both the archaeology and history of the ancient Mayan kingdoms from conception to decline. It works well as an introductory book to the world of Maya, but does not limit itself to just one period. Instead, an overview of the entire Mayan history is meticulously given along with archaeological details. And pictures. Plenty of pictures explaining the Stelas. Overall, a good book!
Other than these minor irritants, the book is very well written and presents a detailed account of both the archaeology and history of the ancient Mayan kingdoms from conception to decline. It works well as an introductory book to the world of Maya, but does not limit itself to just one period. Instead, an overview of the entire Mayan history is meticulously given along with archaeological details. And pictures. Plenty of pictures explaining the Stelas. Overall, a good book!
January 23, 2019
This is the 2nd book I have recently read on the Maya. Like the other book this one was heavily written from a more archeological view than a historical view. The writer does try to fill out the history with reimagined events of everyday life of the Maya based on the archeological evidence. Not recommended unless you are greatly into reading archeological studies.
August 17, 2012
This book is a great showcase of what we lost when the great Linda Schiele died. Though obviously the book is a bit outdated (we just know more about the Maya, particularly their written languages, now than when this book was written), it still holds surprising relevance to Mayan studies today. The technical information is presented in an accessible format that anyone can understand regardless of their previous knowledge/experience in Mayan studies.
This book also does something very unique that few other history books are willing to do (let alone Mayan ones); this book provides fanciful story-style interpretations of historical events surrounding the various Mayan players (like Kings). Some people may not like these short story excerpts as they are historical fiction, but I think they provide the reader with real connections and emotional investment with the historical figures presented in the "history book" portions of the book.
Overall, this is a great book for people interested in some of the major city states and kings of the ancient Maya, and though the information is outdated and the translations crude by today's standard, it is still an enjoyable, educational, and accessible read for people of all backgrounds.
This book also does something very unique that few other history books are willing to do (let alone Mayan ones); this book provides fanciful story-style interpretations of historical events surrounding the various Mayan players (like Kings). Some people may not like these short story excerpts as they are historical fiction, but I think they provide the reader with real connections and emotional investment with the historical figures presented in the "history book" portions of the book.
Overall, this is a great book for people interested in some of the major city states and kings of the ancient Maya, and though the information is outdated and the translations crude by today's standard, it is still an enjoyable, educational, and accessible read for people of all backgrounds.
March 19, 2012
Linda Schele rules! and i hope all the mysteries of the maya were revealed to her when she entered xibalba. and I know she will trick the gods of death and emerge from the turtles back as a resplendent world tree shining under the mesoamerican sun!
November 3, 2022
I still struggle to find a book on ancient Mexico that finds me as its audience, which is fine.
First of all, I'm bad with names, so random series of letters or symbols are not going to register for me on the next page without concerted effort on my part, or just glorious writing on the authors' part. Perhaps making giving historical characters any level of descriptive detail was seen as dishonest, but maybe there was a way to make these characters a little drippier than we get here. Maybe there was a solution.
There are attempts to make the text come alive, with "vignettes" where the authors open the curtain to a vision of an event. These are nice, but even they fail to realize which aspects of Mayan life are to be taken as a given, and which are under some debate. This happens for me all of the time with these types of books. For example, the authors write about priests and kings using white paper to splotch their blood onto during their bloodletting ceremonies. I'm not saying this didn't happen, but wouldn't that be difficult to verify, especially if it happened 2000 years ago? If we are barely learning the names of the kings, how are these details already established? In another example, the authors write of pulling a thorned rope through one's tongue. Besides the Mayan accounts, which are imagistic and, to me, look open to interpretation, is there evidence that this is even possible?
Like I said, I don't know who this text is aimed towards, but unfortunately, I'm not at the level where I am above water during a lot of it.
However, I was able to enjoy a lot of the palace intrigue. I was especially moved by the first-wife who, with her blood, commemorated the birth of the king's first viable son, even though it was with a new wife. I thought the interpretation of Chichen Itza's lack of historical/biographical stele's was fascinating, and hope it is true. The idea of creating a dual kingship that creates no historical account is fascinating. Has it been disproven? I know this book was from 1990.
The portal is now closed, but this book actually does help us catch a brief glimpse of the world tree. It shines bright.
First of all, I'm bad with names, so random series of letters or symbols are not going to register for me on the next page without concerted effort on my part, or just glorious writing on the authors' part. Perhaps making giving historical characters any level of descriptive detail was seen as dishonest, but maybe there was a way to make these characters a little drippier than we get here. Maybe there was a solution.
There are attempts to make the text come alive, with "vignettes" where the authors open the curtain to a vision of an event. These are nice, but even they fail to realize which aspects of Mayan life are to be taken as a given, and which are under some debate. This happens for me all of the time with these types of books. For example, the authors write about priests and kings using white paper to splotch their blood onto during their bloodletting ceremonies. I'm not saying this didn't happen, but wouldn't that be difficult to verify, especially if it happened 2000 years ago? If we are barely learning the names of the kings, how are these details already established? In another example, the authors write of pulling a thorned rope through one's tongue. Besides the Mayan accounts, which are imagistic and, to me, look open to interpretation, is there evidence that this is even possible?
Like I said, I don't know who this text is aimed towards, but unfortunately, I'm not at the level where I am above water during a lot of it.
However, I was able to enjoy a lot of the palace intrigue. I was especially moved by the first-wife who, with her blood, commemorated the birth of the king's first viable son, even though it was with a new wife. I thought the interpretation of Chichen Itza's lack of historical/biographical stele's was fascinating, and hope it is true. The idea of creating a dual kingship that creates no historical account is fascinating. Has it been disproven? I know this book was from 1990.
The portal is now closed, but this book actually does help us catch a brief glimpse of the world tree. It shines bright.
September 27, 2012
Given that this book assumes no previous knowledge and sometimes words things melodramatically, but packs its information pretty densely, I'm guessing that it's intended as an introductory college textbook. The first chapter covers basics of pre-conquest Maya culture, and the last chapter discusses the collapse of Classic civilization and a little about the European conquest. In between, most chapters focus on a specific city: Cerros for the Pre-Classic rise of kingship and monumental architecture, Tikal for the first wars of conquest, a chapter on the reconstructed intercity politics of the middle Classic, two chapters on Palenque and Yaxchilán for detailed examinations of dynastic ideology, Copán for the Terminal Classic and collapse, and Chichén Itzá for post-classic civilization. So many then-ongoing discoveries and controversies appear in this book that it must be significantly out of date by now, more than 20 years after it was published.
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October 2, 2015This was a landmark book when it was published detailing the history of the Maya world based off the newly translated hieroglyphs. Linda Schele was the epigrapher of the Maya world up until her death and her work, including this one, made landmark strides in the field. This is a must read for those just getting into the Maya region and wanting to know the specifics of their history during the Classic period.
January 19, 2008
Co-written by one of the most prominent Maya scholars of the 20th century, the late Linda Schele, this book examines the Mayan civilization through its linguistic legacy. Showing the processes which helped decipher a large amount of Mayan inscription, this book also describes their genealogical legacy as described through the Mayan stelae record.
September 12, 2007
Read ages ago on a trip to Honduras where I visited several Mayan sites. In general, reading about a place on a trip to the place usually reflects poorly on either the place or the literature. In this case, the literature suffered. But there is a lot of human sacrifice to keep the story in the red.
September 24, 2022
Bought as education/backdrop for a vacation in eastern mexico. Wanted a 101 on the Mayans - not sure I’d recommend for that purpose, Wikipedia was more effective. But from what I understand this book is notable because most mayan history was written before we had decoded their script, and this one was written just after, and so is ripe with primary source perspective on the whole new language base.
Structure
- 500 page! But chapter titles attempt to be literary (eg: “Time Travel in the Jungle”) and leave you with little mental model of how to navigate
- Extensive detail in places, particularly birth lines, city plots, and temple construction architectures. This is more of a reference text for scholars than a stand alone narrative for laymen.
- Loose chronologic organization, but hard to get a feel for overall hierarchy of text or why some sections go so deep and others are glossed over quickly. The back half becomes a mostly sequential history of the ruling kings and their families, temples, and feats. I skimmed heavily.
- You find yourself with a collection of fun facts, but not much of an organizing theory or summarization of the civilization and how to think about it. Would have liked more comparative analysis!
What I Learned about the Mayans:
- A thousand year civilization: ~200BC to 900 AD
- Stone age, no beasts of burden and few metals or technologies. But significant political and state complexity. Massive societal organization.
- Roughly structured as about 50 independent city-states. Despite the scale of geographic spread there were really only two dominant languages which allowed for flourishing of statecraft and trade.
- Highly articulated religious code that covered: origin of man, purpose of life, guidelines for society, family, work, and law.
- leadership at the city level was known as being a Cargo Officer, named that way because of the burden of the role. Cargo Officers would pay for all the city festivals and diplomacy out of their own pocket, so extremely expensive for their families to support -- but great privilege.
- Wealth creation frowned upon in general, a sign of non conformity
- Symbol based language, with the same glyphs often drawn in many different forms, such as “looking like a face”. The author uses the helpful metaphor here of medieval texts, and how monks would draw super elaborate letters that look like battle scenes or humans or whatever. Same idea.
- Mayan writing is the only surviving literature from pre-columbian times. Very low literacy for the population, and that was never a goal. Writing was more for priests to pass along techniques and rules.
- No beasts of burden existed in mesoamerica before the arrival of the spanish with mules/horses. Everything was done by foot! Canoe was the most important innovation for their trade.
- Hydraulic empire (same as what we see with Oriental Despotism)... massive societal need for water storage and routing to deal with flood plains, swamps, and deserts. Such massive projects required large scale labor coordination, which became an organizing basis for civilization to take root.
- Almost all wars happened in the jan-may arid season when you could march over dry swamps, and there was nothing to plant
- Hell/Death was an underground, but they existed feet to feet with us, mirror style.
- Base twenty math system
- Highborn classes and kings/rulers were usually the ones sacrificed during religious ceremonies. During wars, captured royals were made to play sports against each other (gladiatorial style) with losers killed spectacularly
- rarely had a police force of central army, so power of king/rulers came from social order not force.
Structure
- 500 page! But chapter titles attempt to be literary (eg: “Time Travel in the Jungle”) and leave you with little mental model of how to navigate
- Extensive detail in places, particularly birth lines, city plots, and temple construction architectures. This is more of a reference text for scholars than a stand alone narrative for laymen.
- Loose chronologic organization, but hard to get a feel for overall hierarchy of text or why some sections go so deep and others are glossed over quickly. The back half becomes a mostly sequential history of the ruling kings and their families, temples, and feats. I skimmed heavily.
- You find yourself with a collection of fun facts, but not much of an organizing theory or summarization of the civilization and how to think about it. Would have liked more comparative analysis!
What I Learned about the Mayans:
- A thousand year civilization: ~200BC to 900 AD
- Stone age, no beasts of burden and few metals or technologies. But significant political and state complexity. Massive societal organization.
- Roughly structured as about 50 independent city-states. Despite the scale of geographic spread there were really only two dominant languages which allowed for flourishing of statecraft and trade.
- Highly articulated religious code that covered: origin of man, purpose of life, guidelines for society, family, work, and law.
- leadership at the city level was known as being a Cargo Officer, named that way because of the burden of the role. Cargo Officers would pay for all the city festivals and diplomacy out of their own pocket, so extremely expensive for their families to support -- but great privilege.
- Wealth creation frowned upon in general, a sign of non conformity
- Symbol based language, with the same glyphs often drawn in many different forms, such as “looking like a face”. The author uses the helpful metaphor here of medieval texts, and how monks would draw super elaborate letters that look like battle scenes or humans or whatever. Same idea.
- Mayan writing is the only surviving literature from pre-columbian times. Very low literacy for the population, and that was never a goal. Writing was more for priests to pass along techniques and rules.
- No beasts of burden existed in mesoamerica before the arrival of the spanish with mules/horses. Everything was done by foot! Canoe was the most important innovation for their trade.
- Hydraulic empire (same as what we see with Oriental Despotism)... massive societal need for water storage and routing to deal with flood plains, swamps, and deserts. Such massive projects required large scale labor coordination, which became an organizing basis for civilization to take root.
- Almost all wars happened in the jan-may arid season when you could march over dry swamps, and there was nothing to plant
- Hell/Death was an underground, but they existed feet to feet with us, mirror style.
- Base twenty math system
- Highborn classes and kings/rulers were usually the ones sacrificed during religious ceremonies. During wars, captured royals were made to play sports against each other (gladiatorial style) with losers killed spectacularly
- rarely had a police force of central army, so power of king/rulers came from social order not force.
October 6, 2023
A fascinating history of the Maya using the then recently deciphered glyphs. The author is convincing that the Mayan glyphs on ruins are historical, they tell stories of conquest, the rise and fall of noble families, and depict the rulers in their attempts to commune with the Underworld to stave off the chaos. It's also fascinating that those captives sacrificed and depicted on the ruins with their names earned more of place in history than most common Mayans. Using the written Maya history, completely demystified of ideals and that they somehow predicted the future, while minimizing Spanish sources is very effective.
The authors do an excellent job explaining the Mayan worldview, creation myths, religion, how Olmec and Toltec civilizations in the nearby Mexico region influenced them, and how the push to form an empire drove some city-states to wage "star wars" based on Venus. That imperialism based on religion was contagious and used by rival states. All Mayan states sought out captives for sacrifice through war all levels of society ritually bled themselves in public ceremonies that modern persons would find terrifying. It puts their widespread human sacrifice and the ballgame into its proper context.
It also puts a nail in the concept of the Maya as passive victims waiting around to be conquered 400 years after their civilization collapsed and they reverted to small communities of farmers. Only a few Mayan kings were left to greet the Spanish. Their worldview may have presented the Spanish with opportunities because of a cunning priest who understood the Mayan time cycle and prophecy. However, the Mayans were active agents of their own destiny and that worldview, though shattered by conquest survives in Central America to this day. This is how natives populations, pre-European contact should be handled by historians: no moralizing and by simply explaining the cold hard facts of the civilization.
The authors do an excellent job explaining the Mayan worldview, creation myths, religion, how Olmec and Toltec civilizations in the nearby Mexico region influenced them, and how the push to form an empire drove some city-states to wage "star wars" based on Venus. That imperialism based on religion was contagious and used by rival states. All Mayan states sought out captives for sacrifice through war all levels of society ritually bled themselves in public ceremonies that modern persons would find terrifying. It puts their widespread human sacrifice and the ballgame into its proper context.
It also puts a nail in the concept of the Maya as passive victims waiting around to be conquered 400 years after their civilization collapsed and they reverted to small communities of farmers. Only a few Mayan kings were left to greet the Spanish. Their worldview may have presented the Spanish with opportunities because of a cunning priest who understood the Mayan time cycle and prophecy. However, the Mayans were active agents of their own destiny and that worldview, though shattered by conquest survives in Central America to this day. This is how natives populations, pre-European contact should be handled by historians: no moralizing and by simply explaining the cold hard facts of the civilization.
August 8, 2023
Though this book is probably woefully out of date, or at least painfully short of later-deciphered details, it is still a fascinating and fairly entertaining outline of the information about the ancient Maya gleaned from the earliest successful translation work done on their glyphs (which appears to have really come to fruition at last in the 1980s?). The obvious excitement the authors feel at finally being able to share cohesive stories about the Maya casts a fun veneer over the otherwise professional narrative. They clearly enjoyed the chance to crack a puzzle and share their results. There isn’t enough here to turn readers of this book into readers of Maya themselves, but there is a lot of humanizing and exploring of these ancient people’s government and religion. There several pictures, and plenty of maps and drawings of glyphs and stelas for the reader to get a feel for the what the authors mean, although it doubtless takes their level of expertise to actually ever read this visually busy and artistic writing. The stories they relate are sometimes fairly dry or simple, being from carvings left in cities by kings (big man history at its most bloviating), like trying to understand the Napoleonic Era of French history from nothing but the Arc de Triomphe. And no doubt translation work has continued in the last 30 years to greatly enrich current knowledge of the Maya. But, this book shows the fruits of the first great steps in translation, and is thus pretty darn interesting.
August 23, 2017
While I am sure there are many books with updated information and new findings (this book was published in 1990), I found this book an extremely interesting and informative read.
Some thoughts/highlights:
- At the beginning of the book there is a section on how to pronounce Mayan words. It was extremely helpful.
- I learned I've been using the terms Maya and Mayan wrong (Mayan refers to language spoken; the name of the people as a noun or adjective is Maya).
- Book has lots of glyph drawings and pictures!
- There are fictional perusals in each chapter, which they are kept short and used as a way to explore and conjecture what life may have been like. I thought they were well done.
Keep in mind, the subject matter is focused on writings, cities and kingship rather than on day to day life of all the Maya. Most of the writing and art was done by/for Kings so there is not really a lot of physical evidence for what the common people thought or did.
It is fascinating to try and piece together the remnants of lives so far past from what little remains. The Maya's own ritual destruction of tablets, plus the Spanish conquest, plus the ravages of time shadow the past in an air of mystery.
Some thoughts/highlights:
- At the beginning of the book there is a section on how to pronounce Mayan words. It was extremely helpful.
- I learned I've been using the terms Maya and Mayan wrong (Mayan refers to language spoken; the name of the people as a noun or adjective is Maya).
- Book has lots of glyph drawings and pictures!
- There are fictional perusals in each chapter, which they are kept short and used as a way to explore and conjecture what life may have been like. I thought they were well done.
Keep in mind, the subject matter is focused on writings, cities and kingship rather than on day to day life of all the Maya. Most of the writing and art was done by/for Kings so there is not really a lot of physical evidence for what the common people thought or did.
It is fascinating to try and piece together the remnants of lives so far past from what little remains. The Maya's own ritual destruction of tablets, plus the Spanish conquest, plus the ravages of time shadow the past in an air of mystery.
April 23, 2020
This incredible, eye-opening text will stay with me for a long time. To see, to hear, to feel this pre-Columbian world in their own words is a pleasure and a privalege. The written Maya language is so eloquent, clever, succinct. So compelling and beautiful.
There are tales of the great ahau (king), Kʼinich Janaab Pakal or Pakal the Great, and his son using public art to give their mothers and grandmothers royal-level legitimacy, tales of strategic arranged marriages in Yaxchilán, tales of fantastic public ritual and spiritual planes of existence, innovations in warfare in Tikal and innovative governance in Chitzén Itzá, and the age of cities winking out of existence, of the written record going dark, of final bits of public art left unfinished mid-sentence...tales of Maya survivors reaching past this dark age to the European age of exploration, the last remnants of a lost world, of books being destroyed to encourage religious conversion. And then to have modern Maya learn how to write like the ancients did, rekindling an ancient literacy...this whole book is worth the read. It is a mind-bending exploration.
I loved it. I want more.
There are tales of the great ahau (king), Kʼinich Janaab Pakal or Pakal the Great, and his son using public art to give their mothers and grandmothers royal-level legitimacy, tales of strategic arranged marriages in Yaxchilán, tales of fantastic public ritual and spiritual planes of existence, innovations in warfare in Tikal and innovative governance in Chitzén Itzá, and the age of cities winking out of existence, of the written record going dark, of final bits of public art left unfinished mid-sentence...tales of Maya survivors reaching past this dark age to the European age of exploration, the last remnants of a lost world, of books being destroyed to encourage religious conversion. And then to have modern Maya learn how to write like the ancients did, rekindling an ancient literacy...this whole book is worth the read. It is a mind-bending exploration.
I loved it. I want more.
January 27, 2025
The authors hewed close to the Mayan text, providing dates throughout the book in Mayan and maintaining sentence structure and a literal word-by-word translation of Mayan text. The Mayan text itself was fascinating, and I appreciate the mind gymnastics of trying to make sense of phrases with the original sentence syntax. It helps one to think more closely along the lines of Mayans, just to read in Mayan syntax.
I enjoyed the copies of Mayan text, the maps and the photos. I also enjoyed the historical fiction sections of each chapter in which we imagine some historical Mayan events based on the available archeological and anthropological information digested by the authors.
A lot of the book was a genealogy and an expanded timeline of events as archeologists understand them. This kept close to the source material, but the reader should approach with a strong interest in genealogy and royal succession timelines.
I would have liked to know more about modern Mayan culture and Mayan modern and historical mythology. I also disagree that history starts with writing, and I wonder how much oral tradition -- if any -- was brought to bear on the authors' narrative.
I enjoyed the copies of Mayan text, the maps and the photos. I also enjoyed the historical fiction sections of each chapter in which we imagine some historical Mayan events based on the available archeological and anthropological information digested by the authors.
A lot of the book was a genealogy and an expanded timeline of events as archeologists understand them. This kept close to the source material, but the reader should approach with a strong interest in genealogy and royal succession timelines.
I would have liked to know more about modern Mayan culture and Mayan modern and historical mythology. I also disagree that history starts with writing, and I wonder how much oral tradition -- if any -- was brought to bear on the authors' narrative.
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June 11, 2019This book focuses on the history of Mayan kings, based on analysis of the glyphs inscribed on excavated ancient temples. There is great detail, more than I would have liked. In essence, the Mayans chose kings as their manner of governance and used literacy as a means of recording it and even justifying it. I'm not a fan of monarchy or dynasties, nor am I a fan of violence, all of which form much of Mayan history. I was pleased that Chichen Itza, a later community, flourished without a king and yet maintained the same standards of architecture and inscribing events and beliefs in stone. The Mayans had a remarkably sophisticated culture, and I am glad that so many spent so much time studying it and seeking to understand the written records left by them. But I'm still more impressed by the peaceful Hopi who eschew violence and seek only to live good lives.
February 4, 2020
I have read dozens of books about the Maya. This one is the best. Don't be intimidated by its size, archeological scope, or detail. There is no one source that can bring to life the Classic era of the Maya like this one. Interspersed with interpretations of the archeological record and historical narrative are jewel-like vignettes where Schele and Freidel describe daily life (as they imagine it would have been based upon the historical record), including, for example, one that takes you in to the inner sanctum with the lords of the Maya and their sacred bloodletting ceremonies. Linda Schele said once that the art of the Maya involves a level of graphic imagination and expertise that is unparalleled. The Maya and her readers are lucky to have Schele: her graphic imagination and expertise are also unparalleled. It is great to hear her voice again.
December 23, 2025
I'll be the first to say that I didn't know much about the Maya before reading this book, so I learned a lot. The focus is on the art - glyphs, stelae, temples. At times the text got a little cerebreal for me, but then the art is communicating complex concepts.
Honestly, the biggest drawback is that this book is more than 30 years old, and I found myself wondering how much has been added or changed to our knowledge since this book was written. Reading the intro about how the two authors co-wrote the book with a fancy new machine called a computer was wild!
I don't think I'll re-read this, and the names and dates are already slipping from memory. But the big picture of how Maya kingship worked and was portrayed in art will stick.
Honestly, the biggest drawback is that this book is more than 30 years old, and I found myself wondering how much has been added or changed to our knowledge since this book was written. Reading the intro about how the two authors co-wrote the book with a fancy new machine called a computer was wild!
I don't think I'll re-read this, and the names and dates are already slipping from memory. But the big picture of how Maya kingship worked and was portrayed in art will stick.
April 21, 2021
This was on a recommended reading list for travelers to Belize. A few basic definitions at the beginning (instead of in the glossary) would have helped. The book is mainly a scholarly interpretation of glyphs found in Mayan ruins. Each chapter contain a highly imaginative story of a ceremony or event. The combination was jarring. After slogging through the book, I still don’t feel I have a grasp on ancient Mayan culture, but I might be able to identify a double headed serpent bar on the side of a temple.
September 15, 2017
This is possibly my favorite book on the Maya which is saying something. Schele and Friedel have a way of conveying not only knowledge of of their subject but understanding of the deeper meanings inherent in that knowledge. I find myself returning to it over and over again and continuing to learn something new each visit.
October 11, 2019
Bought this book after touring some Myan ruins. Had found the knowledge that civilization had pretty amazing. However, this book made for pretty dry reading. One of the few books I just couldn't keep reading. Perhaps good for people really interested in archeology.
January 18, 2020
I really enjoyed this book, I’ve always been fascinated with Mayan history and culture and art. This has it all. Wished I had read it before I had gone to Guatemala a few months ago. But really glad to have learned a lot. Makes me want to go back as soon as possible.
March 16, 2020
This book is written for the religious scholar who is searching for any and all facts related to the Mayan people. That in mind, it's an excellent tome. However I, for one, didn't desire to know every little detail about the Mayan civilization, which is why I rated it a 2.
December 8, 2024
I originally bought this so I could do further research on Copan for my thesis, and I was a little disappointed that I didn't learn that much more. However, this is still a phenomenal text. It is very archeology-heavy, which is fine for me. But I could see it be hard for someone else.
January 2, 2025
In part because there are so many gaps in the historical record this book was very hard to follow. There just isn’t enough source material to make anything like a coherent narrative, even with the authors speculating a great deal. Skipper at least 100 pages:
December 18, 2025
So good! Amazing details, well researched, fascinating insights to the history of the Maya. A lot to pack into one book but it flows well and has a good mix of vignettes that take some liberties to bring the history to life. Highly recommend for anyone interested in or visiting these places.
September 15, 2024
Readable, fascinating history of the Maya and their world.
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