The Maya (Ancient Peoples and Places)

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Ideal for children of 9+, and fact and history lovers of all ages, the Maya have never seemed more exciting! Imagine if the Colosseum was all we had of Rome: you’d have to conclude that the Romans were a game-loving people who built their lives around sports of some description. The Mayan sacred book the Popol Vuh tells of the creation of the universe, the world of gods and demi-gods and the creation of mankind. The information is there (I think) - its just that its hidden within reams of text about the academic main-players and debates about bits of archaeological evidence.

I teach using the Res Gestae Divi Augusti – Augustus’ autobiography engraved on temples in a similar manner – but it is around 2500 words long. From a hermit hiding in the Himalayan jungle since the days of the British Raj, to an accountant at the Bank of India with a passion for Sanskrit poetry, to the last in a line of brahman scholars, Stanley’s path ultimately leads him to a Tibetan yogi, who enlists the American’s help in translating a mysterious ancient text. A close analysis of glyphic elements suggests that a number of scribes were involved in its production, perhaps as many as eight or nine, who produced consecutive sections of the manuscript; the scribes were likely to have been members of the priesthood. She grounds her new perspective on the role of colonialism and portrayals in popular culture, reframing narratives about the Maya being “lost” and “discovered”. Artistic depictions of the travails of hungry ghosts are found throughout the Buddhist world, and some of the best examples are reproduced and richly described here.In many ways these conflicts are a continuation of the half-century Caste War in the 19th century which was fought by the Yucatan Mayas against the domineering white population. The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy offers a wide-ranging collection of 129 ancient and modern poems unlike any other anthology on bookshelves today. I'm now in my late fifties, and over the decades have seen just about every television documentary about this most fascinating of all Mesoamerican societies (two of these, 'Breaking the Maya Code', and 'Cracking the Maya Code' were based on Coe's book of the same name as the former). Two paper fragments incorporated into the front and last pages of the codex contain Spanish writing, which led Thompson to suggest that a Spanish priest acquired the document at Tayasal in Petén.

I read a lot of Roman archaeology and while I can’t always speak in detail about their methodology, it elaborates on and explains the past in coordination with historical accounts.

In The Dharma of Poetry, John Brehm shows how poems can open up new ways of thinking, feeling, and being in the world. Taking in scientific literature, visual arts, architecture, world’s fairs and Indigenous activism, she looks at the decipherment of Maya inscriptions, Maya museum exhibitions and artists’ responses, and contemporary Maya people’s engagements with their ancestral past, to explore the history and legacy of this fascinating culture. Alonso de Zorita wrote that in 1540 he saw numerous such books in the Guatemalan highlands that "recorded their history for more than eight hundred years back, and that were interpreted for me by very ancient Indians".