Print + Online
Query our Library Search to find books and other resources held by our library about all aspects of ancient Mesoamerica. Search by author (e.g., Proskouriakoff, Schele), title (if known), subject (see the LCSH tab), or keyword. Note that keyword searches look for your search terms across all fields.
Example: A researcher looking for books about the Classic Period Maya civilization might reasonably expect to obtain a list of relevant books about that topic by performing the keyword search <"Classic Maya">. Note that the quotation marks force that phrase to appear in the book's description, say the book's title or a chapter title.
That approach works pretty well because the search term is focused. Keyword searches work less well if the search term is conceptually broad. For example, the simple, one-word search term <Maya> results in many additional books about our Native American civilization, but also several "false hits" that include books about the American poet Maya Angelou, a concept in Hindu philosophy, and 3D modeling software.
Remember that in all cases narrowly focused search terms retrieve the most relevant results: <Maya* AND sculpture AND (Quirigua OR Copan) AND exhibitions>. Broaden your "syntax" (search terms) as necessary if initial search(es) retrieve zero results.
Use the search terms <exhibitions> and <catalogs> to find books with art illustrations and scholarly analysis.
The Contested Crown: Repatriation Politics between Europe and Mexico by Call Number: Open Access E-BOOKISBN: 9780226802237Publication Date: 2022-02-16
Mesoamerican ballgame:
The Mesoamerican Ballgame by Call Number: F1219.3.G3 M47 1991ISBN: 9780816511808Publication Date: 1991-09-01
A Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame by Call Number: F1219.3.G3 S66 2001ISBN: 9780500051085Publication Date: 2001-09-01
Mesoamerican dress:
The Adorned Body: Mapping Ancient Maya Dress by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 1477320717Publication Date: 2020-09-01
Dressing the Part: Power, Dress, Gender, and Representation in the Pre-Columbian Americas by Call Number: F1219.3.C75 D74 2017ISBN: 9780813062211Publication Date: 2016-11-30
The following Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), by no means exhaustive, are associated with books relevant to your research paper topics. These headings are useful to all students in this course.
"Indian art" or "Indian architecture" plus region:
- Indian architecture — Central America
- Indian architecture — Mexico
- Indian art — Appreciation
- Indian art — Central America
- Indian art — Mexico
Name of culture followed by subject:
- Aztecs — Antiquities
- Aztecs — Art
- Aztecs — History
- Indians of Central America — Antiquities
- Indians of Central America — Architecture
- Indians of Central America — Art
- Indians of Mexico — Antiquities
- Indians of Mexico — Architecture
- Indians of Mexico — Art
- Maya mural painting and decoration
- Mayas — Antiquities
- Mayas — History
Name of culture followed by "art" or medium:
The four surviving Maya codices and the Maya writing system:
- Codex Dresdensis Maya
- Codex Grolier
- Codex Peresianus
- Codex Tro-Cortesianus
- Inscriptions, Mayan
- Manuscripts, Maya
- Mayan languages — Writing
City-states (i.e., Community Kingdoms):
Note: Include articles by selecting the "Books, Articles, & More" radio button (if it isn't already selected). Re-run your search. Find additional books and e-books not held by our library by running the same subject searches in WorldCat.
Introduction:
Everyday Life in the Classic Maya World by Call Number: F1435.3.S7 A73 2023ISBN: 9781107682917Publication Date: 2023-06-22
Architecture:
An Album of Maya Architecture by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 0486424847Publication Date: 2003-01-20Illustrated by one of the twentieth century's most respected Mayanists, this slim volume contains perspective reconstruction drawings of Classic Period Maya architecture.
Pre-Columbian Architecture of Mesoamerica by Call Number: Internet Archive E-BOOKISBN: 0810910187Publication Date: 1976-08-01This book contains elevations (side views), plans (top-down views), perspective reconstructions, and sections (cross-cut views) of Mesoamerican architecture.
Art (exhibition catalogs):
The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art by Call Number: F1435.3.A7 S34 1986ISBN: 0807612782Publication Date: 1992-04-17This exhibition catalog exploded long-cherished ideas about the ancient Maya. Prior to its publication in 1986, some scholars clung to what was, even then, an outdated model in which the Maya purportedly created a peaceful, non-urban civilization manifested in vacant ceremonial centers. There scholar-priests were said to have concerned themselves solely with esoteric pursuits such as the performance of elaborate religious ceremonies, tracking the motions of stars and the passage of time. That romantic view had come under increasing attack in the two-and-a-half decades leading up to the publication of The Blood of Kings. We now know that Maya polities such as Tikal, Palenque, and Copan were true cities, and that the Maya Lowlands was densely populated during the Late Classic Period. Schele and her collaborators crystalized rather than introduced the idea that Maya history played out against a backdrop of intrigue and state violence seen in other ancient civilizations. Maya art, the authors successfully argued, aggrandized the nobility, reinforcing their dynastic right to rule in depictions of auto-sacrificial bloodletting. Though some of the hieroglyphic translations are outmoded, The Blood of Kings is also significant for its contributions to epigraphy or the decipherment of the Maya script.
Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya by Call Number: F1435.3.A7 M548 2004ISBN: 9780500051290Publication Date: 2004-04-01This is the catalog of an exhibition that resulted from a collaboration between the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia in Mexico City.
Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art by Call Number: F1435.3.A7 C45 2022ISBN: 9781588397317Publication Date: 2022-11-22This is the catalog of an exhibition mounted at The Met in 2022-2023. The curators gathered together some of the finest surviving Maya artworks from museums located around the world.- Maya: Treasures of an Ancient Civilization by Call Number: Internet Archive E-BOOKISBN: 0810918269Publication Date: 1985-08-01Another important exhibition mounted in the mid-1980s with contributions by major scholars in the field including the late art historian Flora Clancy, University of New Mexico. Also available in print, Call # F1435.3.A7 M33 1985.
Calligraphy:
Art and Writing in the Maya Cities, AD 600-800: A Poetics of Line by Call Number: F1434.2.A7 H47 2005ISBN: 9780521842464Publication Date: 2005-06-17
Art of the Maya Scribe by Call Number: F1435.3.W75 C62 1998ISBN: 0810919885Publication Date: 1998-02-01Explore the aesthetics of Maya writing rather than its decipherment. "To the four great calligraphic traditions — ancient Egyptian, East Asian, Islamic, and western European — is now added a fifth: that of the ancient Maya. Long known but little understood, Maya writing has now largely been deciphered, leading to a new understanding of the Maya scribes and the society in which they lived" (dust jacket).
Dancing into Dreams: Maya Vase Painting of the Ik' Kingdom by Call Number: F1435.1.P47 J87 2012ISBN: 9780300174380Publication Date: 2012-10-30
Epigraphy:
Breaking the Maya Code by Call Number: F1435.3.W75C63x 1992ISBN: 0500277214Publication Date: 1993-09-01Dramatically written account of the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing by a scholar who witnessed many of those events. Still one of the most accessible and engaging sources on the topic.
Philosophy:
Philosophy of the Ancient Maya: Lords of Time by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 1498531393Publication Date: 2018"Today, it is possible and valuable for a philosopher like myself, with no archaeological training, to engage with ancient Maya thought in a way that would have been impossible even twenty years ago. Enough has been deciphered, uncovered, and understood about Maya writing and culture that it is now possible to examine Maya philosophy as philosophy" (xvii-xviii).
Politics:
Ancient Maya Politics: A Political Anthropology of the Classic Period, 150-900 CE by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9781108483889Publication Date: 2020-06-18Dr. Simon Martin, author of this award-winning book, uses inscriptions and additional primary evidence to answer an important question in Mesoamerican scholarship: How did the dozens of Maya city-states manage to remain largely indepent during the Classic Period, a span of some 600 years? He argues that the stability of the city-state system is best accounted for within a hegemonic framework. Listen to Dr. Martin's complementary talk, The Classic Maya Collapse: New Evidence on a Great Mystery, delivered at the Penn Museum.
Maya Political Science: Time, Astronomy, and the Cosmos by Call Number: F1435.3.P7 R5 2004ISBN: 0292705697Publication Date: 2004-11-01
Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica by Call Number: Open Access E-BOOKISBN: 9781607324164Publication Date: 2016-03-21
Introductions:
Everyday Life in the Aztec World by Call Number: F1219.76.S64 B47 2021ISBN: 9780521516365Publication Date: 2020-12-03Written by two senior Mesoamerican Studies scholars, Berdan and Smith offer an up-to-date introduction to the civilization of the Mexica, who controlled from their capital, Tenochtitlan, an empire of about 10,000,000 people during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In Part 1 the authors focus on life through the lens of social class: emperor, temple priest, artist (e.g., feather worker), merchant, farmer, and slave. Part 2 explores life activities and events: birth (midwifery and naming ceremonies), consumption (e.g., Tlatelolco marketplace), criminal acts and legal punishments, and soldiers in battle (warfare).
The Mixtecs of Oaxaca: Ancient Times to the Present by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9780806150895Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Art (exhibition catalogs and more):
Philosophy:
Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion by Call Number: F1219.76.P55 M35 2015ISBN: 9781607324614Publication Date: 2015-09-01- Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind by Call Number: F1219.3.P5 L43 1971Publication Date: 1971Translated into English from Filosofía Náhuatl (c. 1963), Miguel Leon Portilla's (1926-2019) classic study of Mexica (Aztec) philosophy provides insight into a non-Western intellectual tradition. Leon Portilla laid out a case for Nahuatl (and by extension Mesoamerican) philosophy: "In the Nahuatl hymns and songs... we can detect questions and ideas that profoundly concern man.... Among the Nahuas, then, as among the Greeks, it was the lyric poets who first became aware of and enunciated the great problems of human existence" (xxiii, 1963 ed.). Books such as Maffie's Aztec Philosophy, above, and others now emerging would not have been possible without Leon-Portilla's work. See too Dag Herbjørnsrud's blog entry titled The Mesoamerican Philosophy Renaissance (1/9/2020), Blog of the American Philosophical Society.
