A Study of Maya Art: Its Subject Matter and Historical Development

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Author: Spinden, Herbert Joseph (1879-1967) Year: 1970 Publisher: Kraus Reprint Company Place: New York Description: xxiii+285 pages with 286 illustrations, 29 plates (many folding) and fold out map. Folio (14" x 11") issued in grey wrappers with black lettering to front wrapper. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Volume VI. Kraus reprint. Ancient Maya art deals mainly with politics, the ancient calendar, and religion. The incredible amount of religiously themed art occurs in many different mediums, mainly stone inscriptions, jewelry, pottery, wall paintings. Art has enabled archaeologists to understand much about Maya ritual and the identities and nature of the gods. Through the ritual actions of the king and elite, gods were born, appeased, and nourished. Man contacted the gods and his ancestors, and he could invoke the forces of nature to work for him. As the Maya invented more and more deities, pleasing all of them became increasingly complicated. By the Classic Period, endless rounds of ceremonies for months, gods, and rites required priestly specialists, causing ritual to become a never ending cycle. Art depicts sacrifice and bloodletting as a primary element of Maya ritual. Numerous murals show lords and kings puncturing themselves with stingray spines, thorns, or lancets. The blood was usually collected by strips of cloth like paper and then burned so that the gods could consume the blood in the form of smoke. Bloodletting from the to

• Printing: later
• Binding: Hardcover

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