The Sky in Mayan Literature

Goodreads Synopsis: The Sky in Mayan Literature offers a synthesis of past and present-day dialogue between people and the world of nature around and especially above them. This unique collection of original essays investigates both ancient and modern Mayan texts and describes concepts of timekeeping and their role in Mayan culture. The celestial sphere is the place where ancient Mayan rulers derived their source of power and yet, it is the very same realm to which the modern peasant still prays for rain. Including contributions from anthropologists, a mathematician, an art historian, and a linguist, the interdisciplinary approach in this innovative book portrays skywatching and celestial worship as one aspect of Mayan cultural behavior that possesses an evolutionary history. What a Mayan shaman sees and interprets in the visual imagery of the sky today is also revealed in the four ancient sacred books that survive. The contributors find a strong correlation between real-time and the heavily-veiled information about the heavens in pre-contact days. Dealing with texts written in hieroglyphic script as well as post-contact alphabetic script, The Sky in Mayan Literature will interest the anthropology and archaeology communities as well as students of cultural and ethno-history of science, and comparative literature.