...
Recommended Reading: Books about the Maya

---

Maya --- Brief introduction to the ancient and modern Maya from the Canadian Society for Mesoamerican Studies.
Maya Adventure --- From Science Museum of Minnesota. "Highlights  science activities and information related to ancient and modern Maya culture." (Good resource for K-12 teachers and students)
Mystery of the Maya -- This web site was produced to accompany an exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It is a very good, quite detailed, popular introduction to the Maya.
Mundo Maya --- (English/Español). On line magazine , with introductions to the modern and ancient Maya.
Maya Civilization Past and Present --- Part of  the Native American Indian Resources site originally published by Paula Giese. This important source of First Nations perspectives and information is being maintained once again, and needs your support. 
Maya Maps  --- Nice collection of maps of the Maya area  at  the University of Indiana Latino Studies Maya page, where other interesting Maya information can also be found.
.

  Recent  discoveries have pushed back the beginning of May civilization. See discussion of the recently excavated stucco masks of the Sun God at Cival (200 BC), and mural of the Maize God at San Bartolo (100 AD)

 FAMSI  (Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies) --- "The Foundation was created in 1993 to foster increased understanding of ancient Mesoamerican cultures". A large collection of scholarly materials on Mesoamerican civilization. Includes archives of Linda Schele's drawings of Maya inscriptions, and the Justin Kerr collection of "roll outs" of Maya ceramics. (FAMSI en Español).
Mesoweb/PARI (Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute) --- Another excellent collection of scholarly and popular material on Mesoamerica, and the Maya in particular. 
Wayeb - Asociación Europea de Mayistas  ---A lot of good features have recently been added at the web site. 
Canadian Society for Mesoamerican Studies
The Maya World Studies Center/Centro de Estudios del Mundo Maya--- (English/Español). Some good on-line material, including discussion of the Maya calendar. 

Mike Ruggeri's Maya Archaeology and News Links ---"In the months ahead, this site will continue to grow into the largest site for Maya Links and News on the World Wide Web.  I will post only the best links on each site and make sure they are still live links".
Introduction to the Maya World with Hyperlinks --- This site has an extensive collection of Maya links 
Mesoamerican Archaeology www page -- Collection of links, and a good archive of material debunking theories that Mesoamerican civilization was introduced from the Old World 
Pre-Columbian Archaeology Related Links
Archaeology About.com --- Nice collection of Maya archaeology links
 
 

Maya Writing

David Stuart and Stephen Houston's Maya Writing, a Scientific American article,  is a good introduction to the Maya script that explains the key breakthroughs which have made it possible to read most hieroglyphic texts.  

The history of writing in Mesoamerica is introduced in Joyce Marcus, First Dates: The Maya calendar and writing 
system were not the only ones in Mesoamerica --- or even the earliest,  a Natural History Magazine  article. 
More about  the origin and development of Maya and other Mesoamerican writing systems can be found at Ancient 
Mesoamerican Civilization's Mesoamerican Writing Systems page, and Ancientscripts.com's Mesoamerican
Writing Systems.

For a nicely illustrated survey of Maya glyph books and other Mesoamerican codices, see GBonline's Mesoamerica. FAMSI has an introduction to Maya Codices  and very large-scale reproductions for down-load.  See also Astronomy in the Codices at this web site.

Perhaps a third of the glyphs in the inscriptions are calendrical. Until recently, these were all that could be read. Learning to read calendar glyphs will add to your understanding of  Maya civilization, and is a prerequisite to further glyph study. See the note on the Maya Calendar at this web site. See also a compendium of astronomical glyphs and symbols and an introduction to lunar calendar glyphs at this web site. 

At this web site, see an example of a translation from the Dresden Codex:  The structure of tzolk'in almanacs.

For more advanced texts on reading the glyphs, see Books about the Maya at this web site. 

The FAMSI and Mesoweb/PARI sites have a lot of material that will assist anyone interested in learning about Maya hieroglyphics. 

The Linda Schele Drawing Archive at FAMSI is a collection of glyphic texts, a few with translations, by a scholar who played a leading role in deciphering the Maya script. John Montgomery's Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs,  also at FAMSI, is a new resource illustrating known glyphs. Another FAMSI resource is Inga Calvin's Maya Hieroglyphics Study Guide . It's essentially  a collection of glyphs arranged by topic, not as complete as Montgomery's dictionary, but often easier to use to look for a glyph.   See also other resources on the FAMSI Maya Writing page.

At  Mesoweb, a beginner might start with two articles that were important landmarks in decipherment:  Lounsbury's Pacal, on the decipherment of the name glyphs of the greatest ruler of Palenque, and Lords of Palenque: The Glyphic Evidence by Mathews and Schele. More advanced students will find David Stuart's Notes on decipherment of some specific glyphs useful.  

Other valuable resources for serious students include the Texas Notes, articles on decipherment from the University of Texas at Austin, where Schele taught and  MED (Maya Epigraphic Database Project), which catalogues glyphic elements and known phonetic values, and  Glyph Dwellers, short papers on decipherment and interpretation of glyphs.

After the Spanish conquest, Maya scribes wrote in native languages using the Latin alphabet. These documents likely preserve material adapted from older glyph books. The Popol Vuh of the Quiche Maya of highland Guatemala begins with an account of creation, and continues with the legendary history of the Quiche up to the time of the conquest. See Raising the Sky, about Maya creation myths in the Popol Vuh and other sources, and Chinkultic Disk, about the mythic ballgame played by the Hero Twins in the Popol Vuh, both at this web site. On-line translation:  The Book of the People: Popol Vuh  (English) by Delia Goetz and Sylvanus Griswold Morley at the Sacred Texts web site. 

In the Yucatan, the most important post-conquest manuscripts are the Books of Chilam Balam compiled by the "Jaguar priests" (Chilam Balam) of Maya towns. These books include history and prophecy. See Maya Augury and Prophecy in the Books of Chilam Balam at this web site. There is a good note on the Books at Maya Discovery. Ralph Roys' complete English translation of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel  is online at the Sacred Texts web site.
 

Right: Maya woman reading a glyph book (Museo Nacional de Anthropolgia, Mexico City).  The usual word in the inscriptions for "scribe" is masculine,  Ah Tz'ib' ("He of the writing"),   but some of the artists who composed codices and inscriptions were likely women.  In  the Classical era, noble women were often powerful figures in Maya society. 
...........
Photo copyright by Edgar Martín del Campo, from his excellent collection at Edgar's Mesoamerican Art Page.  Used with permission.
 

Maya astronomy

Michael Finley's The Real Maya Prophecies: Astonomy in the Inscripions and Codices at this web site --- Although there's a lot of information about Maya astronomy on the Web, you won't find much about how we know what the Maya knew and how the they knew it. That's the focus of this web site. I hope it will be an antidote to some of the fantastic claims about the Maya that rest on very thin evidence, or none at all. I think the feats of Maya astronomers were pretty   fantastic without attributing super-human knowledge to them.  A special section, Myths about the Maya, is devoted to debunking pseudoscientific claims such as Von Danken's "Maya astronaut" and Arguelles' "Dreamspell."  Includes:

• Maya Skywatchers  ---  How the Maya made their astronomical discoveries
• Maya Astronomical Glyphs and Symbols --- Introduction to Maya deities and symbols of earth and sky
  
• Chinkultic Disk --- Myth and astronomy of the Sacred Ballgame from this ballcourt monument and the story of  the Hero Twins in the Quiche Maya Popol Vuh
  
• Raising the Sky --- Milky way and other astronomical symbolism in Maya Creation mythology
• Astronomy in the Codices --- Astronomy in Maya glyph books, including the eclipse, Venus and Mars tables in the Dresden Codex, and the Maya zodiac in the Paris Codex
• Lunar Glyphs --- About the "lunar series" glyphs in Maya inscriptions that record the lunar month
• Note on the Maya Calendar --- An introduction to the Maya calendar,  with a discussion of possible astronomical origins and  the significance of the Maya "end date" in 2012 AD
  

James Q. Jacobs' Mesoamerican Archaeoastronomy: A Review of Contemporary Understandings  --- A good introduction to what is known about Maya astronomy. 

Michiel Berger's Maya Astronomy page introduces the basic concepts of the Maya calendar and astronomy. 

Clive Ruggles  has some interesting examples and photos of Mesoamerican sites on his Archaeoastronomy page. 

The Pomona College Ancient Cosmology and World Astronomy page has some more interesting material on Maya and Mesoamerican astronomy. 

Pomona College also has a good collection of Useful Links for Astronomy and History of Ancient World Astronomy . Other useful collections of links can be found at the University of Bonn's Archaeoastronomy, Ancient Astronomy and Ethnoastronomy Links  and  Maya-astro links at Astra's Stargate web site. 

Links to other topics in Maya astronomy can be found throughout this site.