Reading Maya Art

The art of the Ancient Maya may be considered their most singular cultural achievement. Yet despite a surge in popular interest in these remarkable people, few are fully aware of the richness of their artistic legacy, unique in all of Precolumbian America. Maya art is a rare combination of linear elegance and naturalism, blended with dazzling symbolic complexity. Decorated objects, ranging from painted vases and carved jade and shell ornaments to towering stone monuments and building façades, bear the traces of a symbol system that, while fascinating, can make an understanding of these images elusive to the uninitiated. Presented here for the first time is a compendium of one hundred hieroglyphs that are also building blocks of ancient Maya painting and sculpture. Organized thematically, the symbols touch on many facets of the Maya world, from the natural environment - animals, plants, the heavens - to the mental landscape of gods, myths, and rituals. Using hundreds of line drawings and photographs, Andrea Stone and Marc Zender show how to identify these signs, understand their meaning, and appreciate the novel ways they appear in art. As well as providing a basic introduction, the authors offer many new and exciting interpretations. Lavishly illustrated, and fully cross-referenced and indexed, this groundbreaking guide will prove an invaluable tool for those wishing to see Maya art, perhaps for the first time, through the eyes of ancient scribes and artists.