The pre-Columbian city we call Tikal was abandoned by its Maya residents during the tenth century A.D. and succumbed to the Guatemalan rain forest. It was not until 1848 that it was brought to the attention of the outside world. For the next century Tikal, remote and isolated, received a surprisingly large number of visitors. Public officials, explorers, academics, military personnel, settlers, petroleum engineers, chicle gatherers, and archaeologists came and went, sometimes leaving behind material traces of their visits. A short-lived hamlet was established among the ancient ruins in the late 1870s. In 1956 the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology initiated its fourteen-year-long Tikal Project. This report chronicles documented visits to Tikal during the century following its modern discovery, and presents the post-Conquest material culture recovered by the Tikal Project in the course of its investigation of the pre-Columbian city. Further research on the nineteenth-century settlement was carried out in 1998 in its southern part by the Lacandon Archaeological Project (LAP) under the direction of Joel W. Palka of the University of Illinois at Chicago. The material culture recovered by the LAP supplements the Tikal Project collection and is referenced here. Historical Archaeology at Tikal, Guatemala is intended as a contribution to nineteenth and early twentieth century Lowland Mesoamerican research. It is rounded out with several appendices that will be of interest to historians and historical archaeologists. The printed volume includes many black and white photographs and drawings. A gallery of color photographs, several from Palka's 1998 excavations, is included on the accompanying CD.

Tikal Report 27 presents artifacts and associated unworked materials recovered by the University of Pennsylvania Museum's Tikal Project of 1956-1969.

Unlock the mysteries of the Mayan world. Deep in the rain forests of South and Central America, the Mayan culture thrived for almost 4,000 years. From the earliest Mayan farmer in 2,600 BC through the thirteenth century AD, the Maya developed an elaborate society, built great cities and temples, and created the only real system of writing native to the Americas. Although many of the intricacies of the Mayan culture remain shrouded in mystery, hundreds of new discoveries have come to light in recent years, and our body of knowledge about the Maya has grown by leaps and bounds. Now, the most fascinating new discoveries have been compiled into one volume: Secrets of the Maya, a book from the editors of Archaeology Magazine. From the discovery of ancient caves used for religious rituals—including human sacrifice—to the search for the long-lost "White City," Secrets of the Maya will take readers on an exciting and surprising archaeological journey. Featuring articles on the latest research, a comprehensive time line, and a special section on Mayan hieroglyphs, Secrets of the Maya will appeal to experts and amateurs alike.

The Great Maya center of Tikal, in Guatemala, is famous for its well-preserved architecture. This book presents descriptions of six structures that belong to the Tikal Project category "standing architecture," that is, though partially collapsed, some features of these buildings remain in place and accessible without excavation. These structures were surveyed with little or no excavation as part of the Tikal Project Standing Architecture Survey. This report is the primary record of these structures in Tikal's urban landscape, and it provides clear, precise, and usable architectural analyses for Mayanists, archaeologists, art historians, architectural historians, urbanists, and those interested in construction techniques and in the uses of Maya buildings. Universtiy Museum Monograph, 148

The Maya metropolis of Tikal was once one of the greatest cities in the world, its skyline dominated by huge temple-pyramids. In ad 750 over 100,000 people lived here, in the heart of the Guatemalan rainforest. Today Tikal is a popular site on the Maya tourist itinerary. But why did the city flourish? What does its history reveal about Maya civilization? And why did Tikal collapse? Drawing upon over 30 years of excavation and research, some of it his own, Peter D. Harrison gives a vivid account of the turbulent story of Tikal from 800 bc to the late 9th century ad. Strategically located, the city was a trade centre, an architectural pioneer and a focal point of warfare. The apogee of power and wealth was achieved during the reign of the Jaguar Claw clan, who built the Great Temples, some with tombs of treasures that hint at the richness of life of the lords of Tikal. Illustrated with photographs of artefacts and objects found at the site, remaining structures and a reconstruction of a Tikal king in full regalia, Peter D. Harrison offers a summary of what is known to date of this romantic, mysterious city and its rulers.

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed by regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies--from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations--and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.

Excerpt from Explorations in the Department of Peten, Guatemala, Tikal: Report of Explorations for the Museum This report by Mr. Maler completes the series on the explorations which he has carried on for several years under an agreement made with the Peabody Museum. The report is printed without certain plans referred to by Mr. Maler which have not been received from him. This omission is, how ever, supplied by the Museum Expedition of 1910 (see foot-notes on page 10, et In order to use the plans when reading Mr. Maler's report, the two reports are issued under one cover. To further facilitate reference, a table has been prepared (see page vii of No. Giving the names used by Mr. Maler and the corresponding terms used in the report of 1910. A number of measurements were left blank in Mr. Maler's manuscript, and these have been supplied by the Expedition of 1910, all such being given in italic figures. Mr. Maler's reports were written in German, and it is therefore especially unfortunate that he has not returned the proofs of this and also of the two preceding reports published in Volume IV, Number 3 of these Memoirs. However, the translations were carefully made by two German scholars. Editor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

New materials are reshaping the world and this reference manual has details on the most interesting and useful new materials now available. Featuring more than 200 materials, this is an essential tool for keeping up with rapid developments in the field or as a source of inspiration for designs.

A visitor's guide to the ancient Maya cities of Mexico provides photos, descriptions, and up-to-date tourist information on seventy archaeological sites and sixty museums, detailing the art, architecture, and history of each.

As complex societies emerged in the Maya lowlands during the first millennium BCE, so did stable communities focused around public squares and the worship of a divine ruler tied to a Maize God cult. “E Groups,” central to many of these settlements, are architectural complexes: typically, a long platform supporting three struc¬tures and facing a western pyramid across a formal plaza. Aligned with the movements of the sun, E Groups have long been interpreted as giant calendrical devices crucial to the rise of Maya civilization. This volume presents new archaeological data to reveal that E Groups were constructed earlier than previously thought. In fact, they are the earliest identifiable architectural plan at many Maya settlements. More than just astronomical observatories or calendars, E Groups were a key element of community organization, urbanism, and identity in the heart of the Maya lowlands. They served as gathering places for emerging communities and centers of ritual; they were the very first civic-religious public architecture in the Maya lowlands. Investigating a wide variety of E Group sites—including some of the most famous like the Mundo Perdido in Tikal and the hitherto little known complex at Chan, as well as others in Ceibal, El Palmar, Cival, Calakmul, Caracol, Xunantunich, Yaxnohcah, Yaxuná, and San Bartolo—this volume pieces together the development of social and political complexity in ancient Maya civilization. James Aimers | Anthony F. Aveni | Jamie J. Awe | Boris Beltran | M. Kathryn Brown | Arlen F. Chase | Diane Z. Chase | Anne S. Dowd | James Doyle | Francisco Estrada-Belli | David A. Freidel | Julie A. Hoggarth | Takeshi Inomata | Patricia A. Mcanany | Susan Milbrath | Jerry Murdock | Kathryn Reese-Taylor | Prudence M. Rice | Cynthia Robin | Franco D. Rossi | Jeremy A. Sabloff | William A. Saturno | Travis W. Stanton A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase