Ancient Maya Politics - Softcover

Martin, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108705235 ISBN 13: 9781108705233

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2022

Synopsis

The Classic Maya have long presented scholars with vexing problems. One of the longest running and most contested of these, and the source of deeply polarized interpretations, has been their political organization. Using recently deciphered inscriptions and fresh archaeological finds, Simon Martin argues that this particular debate can be laid to rest. He offers a comprehensive re-analysis of the issue in an effort to answer a simple question: how did a multitude of small kingdoms survive for some six hundred years without being subsumed within larger states or empires? Using previously unexploited comparative and theoretical approaches, Martin suggests mechanisms that maintained a 'dynamic equilibrium' within a system best understood not as an array of individual polities but an interactive whole. With its rebirth as text-backed historical archaeology, Maya studies has entered a new phase, one capable of building a political anthropology as robust as any other we have for the ancient world.

About this title

About the Author

Simon Martin is an Associate Curator and Keeper at the Penn Museum and Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. He is the co-author of Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens (2008) and Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya (2004). He is currently the 2019–2020 Kislak Chair for the Study of the History and Cultures of the Early Americas at the Library of Congress, Washington DC.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1108705235
• ISBN 13: 9781108705233
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544