This volume represents a genuinely important sourcebook for students of ancient Maya civilization and a useful compendium of epigraphic and complementary archaeological data pertaining to the nature and historical dynamics of Classicera Maya political organization. It presents and intelligently discusses much of what was known and believed regarding Lowland Maya political history as of the late 1980s without the excessively imaginative fictionalization that flaws the other recent treatment of this subject, A Forest of Kings (1990), by Linda Scheie and David Freidel. This is decidedly, however, a specialist’s sourcebook. Unquestionably a vital work for all Mayanists, it is sufficiently specialized and particularizing to rule out any great value for those with a more general interest in such topics as pre-industrial political organization or the historical dynamics of archaic states.
The volume recounts the numerous personal and dynastic histories recorded on Classic Maya monuments of the first millenium a.d., as recently deciphered by Mayan epigraphers. It describes the implications of these texts for the social and political interactions between and within discrete Classic Maya states, and outlines the latest refinements to our developing understanding of Classic Maya civilization and the cultural roles of its ruling elites, as suggested by the inscriptions. Textual intelligence is combined with archaeological data in a useful and informative manner by virtually all the individual authors, and in this respect the book not only embodies what “good” Maya scholarship became during the 1970s and ’80s, but illustrates a methodologically sound approach to historical archaeology for any period in any region.
The meat of the volume consists of several individual site histories presented as chapters 3 through 9; but both Mayanists and nonspecialists are likely to find more of interest in the interpretive study of intersite elite interactions by Linda Scheie and Peter Mathews (chapter ro) and in Norman Hammond’s excellent appraisal of current knowledge of the Classic Maya polity (chapter 11). Well-written lead chapters by Hammond (1) and Mathews (2) introduce the reader to the subject of Classic Maya political history and its epigraphic basis, and T. Patrick Culbert, the volume editor, provides a fine summation and synthetic discussion of the volume’s overall content and significance. Without question, this School of American Research Advanced Seminar collection will prove an essential resource and reference for all with a serious interest in ancient Maya civilization.
