Substance of the Ancient Maya
Substance of the Ancient Maya
Kingdoms and Communities, Objects and Beings
“An excellent contribution to the field of Maya studies.”—William L. Fash, author of Scribes, Warriors, and Kings: The City of Copán and the Ancient Maya
Substance of the Ancient Maya: Kingdoms and Communities, Objects and Beings collects twelve essays by top scholars, highlighting what is new in research pertaining to the ancient Maya. Subjects range from updated political histories of major kingdoms in the southern Maya Lowlands to explorations of the nature of Maya writing and materiality. These essays were inspired by the scholarship of Stephen Houston and celebrate his transdisciplinary commitment to research in anthropological archaeology, epigraphy, and art history.
Collectively, these contributions show how the objects and beings that composed the Classic Maya world were both literal and sacred substances that mediated relations not only among living people but with gods and ancestors. A final chapter by Stephen Houston reflects on unfinished projects of the ancient Maya as a metaphor for all of the work yet to be done to move forward in our studies of the past.
Andrew K. Scherer is the director of the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and an associate professor of anthropology and archaeology at Brown University.
Thomas G. Garrison is an assistant professor of geography and the environment and the director of the Lidar and Landscapes of the Ancient Mediterranean and Americas (LLAMA) Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.
