First published 1994
For nearly 150 years after Maya cities were rediscovered, their hieroglyphic inscriptions remained silent mysteries carved on temples, palaces, and stone monuments. Michael Coe chronicles the scientific breakthrough that finally unlocked this ancient script and brought a lost civilization back to life. As a Maya scholar himself, Coe knew or worked alongside the key figures who made the crucial discoveries. He traces their intellectual battles and competing theories while revealing what the deciphered glyphs actually tell us about Maya society. The inscriptions expose a world far more complex than earlier scholars imagined. Rather than peaceful astronomers, the Maya emerge as warriors obsessed with dynastic power struggles and ritual blood sacrifice, yet creators of extraordinary art and architecture. Coe weaves together the detective work of decipherment with a complete picture of Maya civilization as we now understand it. The book shows how one of the most exciting intellectual adventures of our time transformed mute stone carvings into vivid historical records that had been silent for a thousand years.
Genres: history, 20th-century, archaeology, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: detective-work, intellectual-adventure
Setting: Maya
Period: 150 Years Ago
288 pages · Paperback · Penguin (London)