The Sky in Mayan Literature

This unique collection of essays investigates both ancient and modern Mayan texts and describes concepts of timekeeping and their role in Mayan culture. Including contributions from anthropologists, a mathematician, an art historian, and a linguist, the interdisciplinary approach in this innovative book offers a synthesis of past and present-day dialogue between people and the world of nature around, and especially above them. 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. Current research brought together in this volume attempts to portray skywatching and celestial worship as one aspect of Mayan cultural behavior that possessed an evolutionary history. It depicts the ever-changing function of the sky as revealed in the sacred books of the Classic period, intended for priestly eyes only, through to the documents, written in the foreign tongue of a conquering oppressor, that tell of a transformed world view in which time's calendar was nevertheless still celebrated.