A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY
The title of Edmonson's work refers to the Mayan custom of first predicting their history and then living it, and it may be that no other peoples have ever gone so far in this direction. The Book of Chilam Balam was a sacred text prepared by generations of Mayan priests to record the past and to predict the future. The official prophet of each twenty-year rule was the Chilam Balam, or Spokesman of the Jaguar—the Jaguar being the supreme authority charged with converting the prophet's words into fact.
This is a literal but poetic translation of one of fourteen known manuscripts in Yucatecan Maya on ritual and history. It pictures a world of all but incredible numerological order, slowly yielding to Christianity and Spanish political pressure but never surrendering. In fact, it demonstrates the surprising truth of a secret Mayan government during the Spanish rule, which continued to collect tribute in the names of the ruined Classic cities and preserved the essence of the Mayan calendar as a legacy for the tradition's modern inheritors.
The history of the Yucatecan Maya from the seventh to the nineteenth century is revealed. And this is history as the Maya saw it—of a people concerned with lords and priests, with the cosmology which justified their rule, and with the civil war which they perceived as the real dimension of the colonial period.
A work of both history and literature, the Tizimin presents a great deal of Mayan thought, some of which has been suspected but not previously documented. Edmonson's skillful reordering of the text not only makes perfect historical sense but also resolves the long-standing problem of correlating the two colonial Mayan calendars. The book includes both interpretative and literal translations, as well as the Maya parallel couplets and extensive annotations on each page. The beauty of the sacred text is illuminated by the literal translation, while both versions unveil the magnificent historical, philosophical, and social traditions of the most sophisticated native culture in the New World.
The prophetic history of the Tizimin creates a portrait of the continuity and vitality, of the ancient past and the foreordained future of the Maya.
Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Itzas of Petén, Guatemala is the first exhaustively detailed and thorough account of the Itzas—a Maya group that dominated much of the western lowland area of tropical forest, swamps, and grasslands in Petén, Guatemala. Examining archaeological and historical evidence, Prudence Rice and Don Rice present a theoretical perspective on the Itzas’ origins and an overview of the social, political, linguistic, and environmental history of the area; explain the Spanish view of the Itzas during the Conquest; and explore the material culture of the Itzas as it has been revealed in recent surveys and excavations.
The long but fragmented history of the Petén Itzas requires investigation across multiple periods and regions. Chapters in this six-part overview interweave varying data pertaining to this group—archaeological, artifactual, indigenous textual, Spanish historical—from multiple languages and academic fields, such as anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, ecology, and history. Part I introduces the lowland Itzas, northern and southern, with an emphasis on those of the central Petén lakes area. Part II discusses general Itza origins and identities in the Epiclassic period, while part III reviews Spanish perceptions and misconceptions of the Petén Itzas in their Contact-period writings. With these temporal anchors, parts IV and V present the archaeology and artifacts of the Petén Itzas, including pottery, architecture, and arrow points, from varied sites and excavations but primarily focusing on the island capital of Tayza/Nojpetén. Part VI summarizes key data and themes of the preceding chapters for a new understanding of the Petén Itzas.
A companion volume to The Kowoj—a similar treatment of the Petén Itzas’ regional neighbors—Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Itzas of Petén, Guatemala demonstrates the unique physical, cultural, and social framework that was home to the Petén Itza, along with their backstory in northern Yucatán. Archaeologists, historians, art historians, and geographers who specialize in the Maya and the Postclassic, Contact, and Colonial periods will find this book of particular interest.
Contributors: Mark Brenner, Leslie G. Cecil, Charles Andrew Hofling, Nathan J. Meissner, Timothy W. Pugh, Yuko Shiratori
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press