|
Showing 1 - 4 of
4 matches in All Departments
Believing that Maya studies today are ""suffering from imbalance,""
J. Eric S. Thompson here approaches Maya history and religion from
the standpoint of ethno-history. Present-day archaeologists often
tend to restrict their curiosity to their excavations and social
anthropologists to observe the modern Maya as members of a somewhat
primitive society in an era of change. In this volume, a
distinguished Maya scholar seeks to correlate data from colonial
writings and observations of the modern Indian with archaeological
information in order to extend and clarify the panorama of Maya
culture.The shock of the Spanish Conquest was devastating to the
Maya. Not only were they placed under the domination of a people
uninterested in their ancient ways, but their religion was
proscribed, they were removed from their familiar settlements into
new areas, and new diseases were introduced which ravaged their
civilization. In spite of these ordeals, the Maya have clung
closely to the old ways, and Maya culture is still very much alive,
though slowly giving way before modern technology and influences.
Topics discussed include Putun Maya expansion in Yucatan and the
Pasion drainage, the depopulation of the Maya Central area at the
time of the Conquest on account of newly introduced diseases, the
location of the controversial eastern boundary of the Maya area,
trade relations between the highlands and the lowlands, the use of
hallucinatory drugs and tobacco, lowlands Maya religion, and the
creation myths of the Maya in relation to those of other Middle
American cultures. Mr. Thompson's approach to Maya life will prove
thought-provoking to archaeologists, ethnologists, historians, and
all others interested in the ancient Maya civilization.
"Maya Archaeologis"t is an autobiographical account of
explorations in Mayan ruins by J. Eric Thompson, one of the world's
foremost authorities on the Maya Indians of Mexico and Central
America. Based on his expeditions from 1926 to 1936 - when
conditions in the Maya area were very close to those in the years
of the Conquest - this book is an intensely personal account of the
investigation of the "stone cities," such as Uxmal, Chichen Itza,
Copan, Tikal, and Quirigua, as well as lively portraits of the
archaeologists who probed this civilization - Morley, Gann,
Ruppert, Vaillant, Roys, and many others.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|