The world of the Ancient Maya (by John S. Hemnderson John Murray £25 in UK)At its peak, the Maya civilisation extended throughout south-eastern Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and present day Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and northern El Salvador. Descendants of this extraordinary race continue to occupy vast areas of Guatemala and eastern Mexico. Mainly farmers, they practice a mixture of Catholic and native religions. No modern Maya group is a living relic of its ancestry but many still live as if time has left them behind. Yet the ancient Maya devised a writing system and were to create the most complex culture in the New World.
Maya literary and historical sources were plundered by the Spanish adventurers who arrived in the New World in the 16th century, not only creating havoc in the name of colonial expansion but committing a passive form of murder by introducing new diseases.
It is the story of that passive collapse which most interests him. Though centring on the Maya, he also acknowledges the Olmec people who created Meso america's first complex culture as "a multi-ethnic polyglot phenomenon". While advanced on many technological levels the Maya never developed the use of metals. All their remarkable stone decoration, much of it more rounded than relief, was achieved using flint.
Henderson begins his study at its end, with the first Spanish invasion. He makes the point that Europeans had probably been fishing off the coast of North America for centuries and that the Norse had briefly settled Vinland and areas of coastal North America by AD 1000. Only in the aftermath of Columbus's expeditions had the Americas excited Europeans intent on land, slaves and gold. The first generations of Spanish invaders were aware of the connection between the remains of the pre-Columban Maya civilisation and the people they were subjugating. As time passed, such continuity was forgotten.
In addition to the upheaval caused by intruders I their obliteration of the Maya Literature. Religious fervour inspired the Spanish to destroy the "pagan" texts. The newcomers were also aware that the Maya writing system , with it's intricate symbolism, was vital to the natives. So this was also destroyed and with it a historical as well as cultural record was lost. Describing the sense of a cultural "kaleidoscope" which defines the various Maya groups, Henderson stresses the importance of language as a constant . If the Spanish met little opposition from the native population, the dense tropical forest cover presented many problems. The Mayan highland communities retained their language and cultural traditions. The Southern lowlands of Yucatan also remained remote, leaving the eastern fringe of the Maya area at the base of the Gulf of Hunduras the earliest base to attack and conquer.
The narrative moves in phases and Henderson plots the development of the agricultural systems and practices. Asking questions but avoiding hypothesis, he also describes the way the Maya initially lived in remote villages in which society was unusually egalitarian. Not until the late Preclassic period (from 400BC onwards) did Maya culture acquire an elite which in time broadened so that aristocrats and high priests were buried in elaborate underground vaults. This also led to the emergence of the Mayan city states of the Classic period.
Even when creating the magnificent public buildings such as Guatemala's Great Acropolis at Tikal, or Corpan's various riches including the Great Plaza, the Great Ballcourt and the Acropolis - all begun in Hunduras about AD 200 - or Uxmal's Temple of the Magician in Yucatan , the Maya were never urbanised. The great cities are largely about fabulous buildings, not settlement. Despite the increasing sophistication of the political and administrative networks, small communities remained the norm. By the 11th century every powerful Classic period state had dissolved. The aristocrats which had created them had vanished.
The portrait of the politically fragmented Maya world which emerges from this book is that of a civilised people not aggressive enough to survive as a civilisation. Archaeology has been left to piece back together a history lost by the destruction of the literature. The Spanish soon became more interested in the Aztecs because they had gold.
In time, Mexican culture also spread. Alert to increasing breakthroughs coming in the form of advanced hieroglyphic deciphering, Henderson provides a detailed, sombre, authoritative and certainly up-to-date account of a mysterious world which lives on through its dramatic architecture.