Author: Peter D. Harrison
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 9780500050941
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
The Maya metropolis of Tikal was once one of the greatest cities in the world, its skyline dominated by huge temple-pyramids. In ad 750 over 100,000 people lived here, in the heart of the Guatemalan rainforest. Today Tikal is a popular site on the Maya tourist itinerary. But why did the city flourish? What does its history reveal about Maya civilization? And why did Tikal collapse? Drawing upon over 30 years of excavation and research, some of it his own, Peter D. Harrison gives a vivid account of the turbulent story of Tikal from 800 bc to the late 9th century ad. Strategically located, the city was a trade centre, an architectural pioneer and a focal point of warfare. The apogee of power and wealth was achieved during the reign of the Jaguar Claw clan, who built the Great Temples, some with tombs of treasures that hint at the richness of life of the lords of Tikal. Illustrated with photographs of artefacts and objects found at the site, remaining structures and a reconstruction of a Tikal king in full regalia, Peter D. Harrison offers a summary of what is known to date of this romantic, mysterious city and its rulers.
Author: Arthur G. Miller
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : es
Pages : 104
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Book Description
Author: John S. Henderson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801482847
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
Theirs was one of the few complex societies to emerge in and to adapt successfully to a tropical-forest environment. Their architecture, sculpture, and painting were sophisticated and compellingly beautiful.
Author: H. Stanley Loten
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1934536946
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 158
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Book Description
The Maya center of Tikal, in Guatemala, is famous for its well-preserved architecture. This book presents detailed descriptions of four of the six Great Temples that dominate Tikal's city center. Whereas Great Temples I and II were published in 1990 in Tikal Report 14, the four structures presented here are Great Temples III, IV, V, and VI. All but Great Temple V represent Late Classic construction and can be associated with known rulers. It is tempting to think of these structures as funerary monuments, but this is only a supposition. Their relationship with rulers may have been much more complex. This report is the primary record of these important buildings in Tikal's urban landscape. It provides clear, precise, and usable architectural analyses for Mayanists, archaeologists, art historians, architectural historians, urbanists, and those interested in construction techniques and in the uses of Maya buildings. University Museum Monograph, 146
Author: Matthew Hedman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226322947
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259
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Book Description
Taking advantage of recent advances throughout the sciences, Matthew Hedman brings the distant past closer to us than it has ever been. Here, he shows how scientists have determined the age of everything from the colonization of the New World over 13,000 years ago to the origin of the universe nearly fourteen billion years ago. Hedman details, for example, how interdisciplinary studies of the Great Pyramids of Egypt can determine exactly when and how these incredible structures were built. He shows how the remains of humble trees can illuminate how the surface of the sun has changed over the past ten millennia. And he also explores how the origins of the earth, solar system, and universe are being discerned with help from rocks that fall from the sky, the light from distant stars, and even the static seen on television sets. Covering a wide range of time scales, from the Big Bang to human history, The Age of Everything is a provocative and far-ranging look at how science has determined the age of everything from modern mammals to the oldest stars, and will be indispensable for all armchair time travelers. “We are used to being told confidently of an enormous, measurable past: that some collection of dusty bones is tens of thousands of years old, or that astronomical bodies have an age of some billions. But how exactly do scientists come to know these things? That is the subject of this quite fascinating book. . . . As told by Hedman, an astronomer, each story is a marvel of compressed exegesis that takes into account some of the most modern and intriguing hypotheses.”—Steven Poole, Guardian “Hedman is worth reading because he is careful to present both the power and peril of trying to extract precise chronological data. These are all very active areas of study, and as you read Hedman you begin to see how researchers have to be both very careful and incredibly audacious, and how much of our understanding of ourselves—through history, through paleontology, through astronomy—depends on determining the age of everything.”—Anthony Doerr, Boston Globe
Author: Dennis Tedlock
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520271378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481
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Book Description
A chronological survey of Mayan literature, covering two thousand years, from the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions to later works using the Roman alphabet.
Author: John Montgomery
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
This concise illustrated volume recounts Tikal's rise from prehistoric obscurity to unparalleled success at the height of Maya Civilisation, as well as its spectacular collapse and abandonment. Through the many hieroglyphic inscriptions, grave gifts from tombs, and a rich architectural and artistic legacy, the book recreates the political, and social life of the city and of the Maya in general.
Author: Joanne Baron
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607325187
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243
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Book Description
In the first comprehensive treatment of Classic Maya patron deity veneration, Joanne P. Baron demonstrates the central importance of patron deity cults in political relationships between both rulers and their subjects and among different Maya kingdoms. Weaving together evidence from inscriptions, images, and artifacts, Patron Gods and Patron Lords provides new insights into how the Classic Maya polity was organized and maintained. Using semiotic theory, Baron draws on three bodies of evidence: ethnographies and manuscripts from Postclassic, Colonial, and modern Maya communities that connect patron saints to pre-Columbian patron gods; hieroglyphic texts from the Classic period that discuss patron deity veneration; and excavations from four patron deity temples at the site of La Corona, Guatemala. She shows how the Classic Maya used patron deity effigies, temples, and acts of devotion to negotiate group membership, social entitlements, and obligations between individuals and communities. She also explores the wider role of these processes in politics, arguing that rituals and discourses related to patron deities ultimately formulated Maya rulership as a locally oriented institution, which limited the ability of powerful kingdoms to create wider religious communities. Applying a new theoretical approach for the archaeological study of ideology and power dynamics, Patron Gods and Patron Lords reveals an overlooked aspect of the belief system of Maya communities.
Author: James L. Fitzsimmons
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292781989
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
Like their regal counterparts in societies around the globe, ancient Maya rulers departed this world with elaborate burial ceremonies and lavish grave goods, which often included ceramics, red pigments, earflares, stingray spines, jades, pearls, obsidian blades, and mosaics. Archaeological investigation of these burials, as well as the decipherment of inscriptions that record Maya rulers' funerary rites, have opened a fascinating window on how the ancient Maya envisaged the ruler's passage from the world of the living to the realm of the ancestors. Focusing on the Classic Period (AD 250-900), James Fitzsimmons examines and compares textual and archaeological evidence for rites of death and burial in the Maya lowlands, from which he creates models of royal Maya funerary behavior. Exploring ancient Maya attitudes toward death expressed at well-known sites such as Tikal, Guatemala, and Copan, Honduras, as well as less-explored archaeological locations, Fitzsimmons reconstructs royal mortuary rites and expands our understanding of key Maya concepts including the afterlife and ancestor veneration.
Author: Peter N. Peregrine
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461505259
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 486
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Book Description
The Encyclopedia of Prehistory represents temporal dimension. Major traditions are an attempt to provide basic information also defined by a somewhat different set of on all archaeologically known cultures, sociocultural characteristics than are eth covering the entire globe and the entire nological cultures. Major traditions are prehistory of humankind. It is designed as defined based on common subsistence a tool to assist in doing comparative practices, sociopolitical organization, and research on the peoples of the past. Most material industries, but language, ideology, of the entries are written by the world's and kinship ties play little or no part in foremost experts on the particular areas their definition because they are virtually and time periods. unrecoverable from archaeological con The Encyclopedia is organized accord texts. In contrast, language, ideology, and ing to major traditions. A major tradition kinship ties are central to defining ethno is defined as a group of populations sharing logical cultures. similar subsistence practices, technology, There are three types of entries in the and forms of sociopolitical organization, Encyclopedia: the major tradition entry, which are spatially contiguous over a rela the regional subtradition entry, and the tively large area and which endure tempo site entry. Each contains different types of rally for a relatively long period. Minimal information, and each is intended to be areal coverage for a major tradition can used in a different way.
