Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens

by Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube

Book Overview

Behind the ancient cities of the Maya and their abandoned artworks lie the turbulent stories of their ruling dynasties. One of the world's greatest and most powerful civilizations, the Maya experienced constant conflict in a landscape divided among numerous kingdoms. Intense rivalries, rapacious conquerors, and repeated dynastic defeat and breakdown are common themes in many tales of this mighty civilization.

The ancient Maya remain one of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0500287260
• ISBN13: 9780500287262
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.5" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

A book for all your Classic Maya needs

This book is a perfect example on how to divulge history without making it too simple or pandering to the "sensationalist" aspects of the tale. The research on the ancient Maya culture over the last decades has revealed enough information that a more or less complete sequence of events can be drawn over several centuries. It also has revealed that the Mayan did not seem able, or willing, to strive towards the establishment of a centralized empire as others civilizations tried. The result is a complex story involving the struggles between loosely organized groups of petty states around a few major ones. Telling that tale in an exciting way is thus more difficult: no Alexander the Great figure here to follow.... But Martin and Grube have been able to spin the yard of quite a tale. Once you pass the catchy title that makes you wonder whether the inside will be lightweight history, you do realize that this is a very complete, if brief, book. After a concise introductory chapter, the authors chose deliberately to tell the story of a few individual cities. You might disagree as to why they chose those (Northern cities such as Uxmal are absent). You might have wanted a more unified tale of Mayan civilization. Or perhaps a more people's oriented history. But the fact is that there are not many facts on the ancient Maya in spite of recent advances. It is to the merit of the authors to make the most of these facts to write an informative story, a city based history as the Mayan were, without entering into undue speculations. And that the book is loaded with nice pictures, interesting maps and diagrams is a great plus. Nice enough for a coffee table, deep enough for a serious library.

THE Reference Guide for Classic Maya History

Until I finally started using this book (I've had my copy since December, but haven't been able to return to studying Maya History until now), I would have recommended Schele and Friedel's _Forest of Kings_ (1990) as the best synthesis of Maya History. Though _Forest_ is out of date, it did a remarkable job at establishing a general idea of what Classic Maya history was all about (I'm not sure I want to use the word paradigm here). But with _Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens_, Martin and Grube have achieved two great things. First, they have finally provided a good public accounting of their work on the Calakmul alliance. The piecing together of Calakmul's history and political structure from the rest of the Maya lowlands is truly an important key to understanding Maya political evolution.Second, they have produced a first rate synthesis of Classic Maya history, at a time when some of the pieces are really falling into place. This is an evident strength of the book. While the chapters on the Late Classic city-states (Yaxchilan, Copan, etc.) are informative, up-to-date, and useful, they primarily fill out a picture of squabbling city states that has been understood for some time.But it is in the first half of the book, dealing primarily with the conquests of Tikal/Teotihuacan (a connection only now being revealed with any sense of understanding) and the rival alliance built by the city of Calakmul during the 4th-7th centuries AD, that this book truly shines.The systematic presentation of information on the rulers (especially the listing of names used previously by other Maya historians and archaeologists) will be of incredible utility to anyone trying to understand Maya history. On the subject of names, Martin and Grube are definitely up to date on using phonetic readings for as many names as they can, though I am sometimes skeptical of phonetic readings that do not spell out known words. I do think that an extensive endnote section dealing with some of these readings (ala _Forest of Kings_) would be useful, but I also understand that such a section might not be appropriate for the series that _Chronicle_ is a part of.Truly, my only complaint concerning _Chronicle_ would be that I wanted more (more sites, primarily). Assuming that Martin and Grube have built up a significant database of historical data in preparing this book, I for one would love to see a specialist work, sort of a "Maya Who's Who", on all known personages. But _Chronicle_ will be keeping me busy checking monuments and dates for quite some time. This is truly an important work, and one which will hopefully inform both Mesoamericanists and the general public about an important chapter in the history of the Americas.

Magnificent, Lavishly Illustrated, and Well Written

This book gives you some context of the history of the "discovery" of the Mayan culture and of the present state of archaeological understanding. The REAL strength of this book is in the surveys of eleven important Mayan cities. It discusses their rise, sources of political powers, the ruling lineages and how all of these cities intertwined in history and power.After reading this book I have a better four-dimensional sense of these city-states. This book is a treasure.

Excitingly political

Highly recommended as a short, accessible, and not too technical introduction to Maya political history during the Classic Period (first millenium A.D.). Simon Martin is a brilliant young English art scholar and Nikolai Grube an outstanding epigrapher from Bonn. They collaborated to propose a new theory of grand shifting alliances among ancient Maya city states that roiled the Yucatan Peninsula 1500 years ago. This Chronicle (one in a Thames & Hudson series) includes that and more: it is an event-based chronicle of all the best known rulers of the ancient Maya world as currently inferred from their own pictorial hieroglyphics. It is a wonderful supplement for people interested in the Maya, with an exciting new history to outline. There IS a chronological narrative running through it, but really this is a book to be studied. Only the 11 most powerful (or well-documented) Maya city states are presented in full. After a brief introduction to Maya history, five chapters trace the glyph-based histories of the most important cities (including Tikal and Calakmul). Then six chapters cover as many peripheral cities with full records (like Palenque and Copan), concluding with the fall of the kings. The text is festooned with innumerable photographs, line drawings of hieroglyphs and royalty, explanatory captions, kings' names, biographical tables, sidebars on archaeological topics, views of buildings, and shaded city plans. Helping you keep track of the impossible (and often similar) names are king headers and timeline footers. A useful bibliography and name (not topic) index complete the bookThis book is not intended as a guide to famous ruins nor does it deal with the popular subject of Maya religion and cosmos. It deals with the political outcomes of the scheming and murder that underpinned all that. It does not provide glyph by glyph readings (as Schele and Mathews do for many of the same cities in the very different CODE OF KINGS). The book is printed on fine paper in Slovenia. (Hopefully we shall soon see some good novels fleshing out the bloody tales implied here.)

A great additional to a wonderful series

The "Chronicle" series are excellent introductions to the leaders of a variety of past, and some present civilizations. The Mayan history is an excellent pictorial and narative of the Central American civilization. I am amazed at the information that can be presented in a fresh and non-dry, textbook fashion. It makes history even more interesting. It also is a great stepping off point for other readings on the subject.