Royal Cities of the Ancient Maya

Description

pp. 224, “The Maya are of enormous and abiding fascination to anybody interested in archaeology, ancient history, astronomy, or the visual arts. From the 3rd century BC to the 14th century AD, while Europe was deep in the Dark and Middle Ages, the Maya were producing astonishing sculpture, stelae, and wall murals, and building magnificent temples, palaces, tombs, and ball courts. Now, in this extraordinary volume pairing a leading Maya scholar and one of the world’s finest photographers of ancient sites, the rich cultural heritage of the Maya is brought vividly and authoritatively to life.
Author Michael Coe traces the rise and fall of Maya civilization through its great royal cities, from El Mirador, the largest and oldest, to the rival city-states of the Classical period such as Tikal, Calakmul, Yaxchilán, Palenque, Toniná, and Copán. He then moves on to the great cities of the Terminal Classic period; at a time when the mighty centers of the southern lowlands were in a steep decline, cities to the north such as Uxmal and Kabah achieved a pinnacle of architectural beauty. After that he turns to the Postclassic period and Chichén Itzá in central Yucatán, a huge, cosmopolitan city that flourished during a military and cultural takeover by the Toltecs of central Mexico. Through convincing analysis of archaeological evidence, new readings, of artifacts, reliefs, and murals, Professor Coe untangles the complex sequences of internecine ritual warfare that eventually weakened Maya civilization.
Illustrating Coe’s riveting history of these remarkable polities, the powerful dynasties that led them, and the political intrigues and armed conflicts that threatened their existence, are the exceptionally evocative photographs of Barry Brukoff, whose color and sepia imagery recalls the lithographs of the early-nineteenth-century artist and explorer Frederick Catherwood.”