ebook img

Exploring Maya Ritual Caves: Dark Secrets from the Maya Underworld PDF

241 Pages·2011·19.039 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Exploring Maya Ritual Caves: Dark Secrets from the Maya Underworld

EXPLORING MAYA RITUAL CAVES BBooookk 11..iinnddbb ii 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM BBooookk 11..iinnddbb iiii 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM EXPLORING MAYA RITUAL CAVES Dark Secrets from the Maya Underworld Stanislav Chládek A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lanham (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK BBooookk 11..iinnddbb iiiiii 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM Published by AltaMira Press A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.altamirapress.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2011 by AltaMira Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chládek, Stanislav, 1937- Exploring Maya ritual caves : dark secrets from the Maya underworld / Stanislav Chládek. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7591-1987-1 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7591-1989-5 (electronic) 1. Mayas—Rites and ceremonies. 2. Mayas—Religion. 3. Mayas— Antiquities. 4. Caves—Mexico—Religious aspects. 5. Caves—Central America—Religious aspects. 6. Central America—Antiquities. 7. Mexico— Description and travel. 8. Mexico—Description and travel. 9. Central America—Description and travel. 10. Chládek, Stanislav, 1937—Travel. I. Title. F1435.3.R56C47 2011 972.8—dc22 2011001090 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America BBooookk 11..iinnddbb iivv 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM To my late parents, who were always hoping that I would become a little more than a bum . . . I am sorry that it did not fully turn out that way . . . BBooookk 11..iinnddbb vv 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM The cave, also means place of dead. Our mothers, our fathers have gone; They have gone to rest in the water, in the cave. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex (1578–1579) BBooookk 11..iinnddbb vvii 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chronology 3 1 The Maya and Their World 5 2 Caves and the Maya 19 3 Journeys into the Underworld 101 Conclusion 189 Glossary 195 Notes 199 Bibliography 203 Index 213 About the Author 227 vii BBooookk 11..iinnddbb vviiii 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM BBooookk 11..iinnddbb vviiiiii 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM Acknowledgments I am particularly indebted to Dr. Dominique Rissolo, Waitt In- stitute of Discovery, San Diego, California, for support and en- couragement during my work on this project. Additionally, he helped me arrange visits to several cave sites in Quintana Roo, Mexico; provided me with photographs; identified several cave ceramics mentioned in the text; and corrected the Maya orthog- raphy in the manuscript. In the field, my greatest help was Dr. Jamie Awe, director of the Belize Institute of Archeology in Belmopan, who arranged my visits to several normally inaccessible caves and ruins, and allowed me to take photographs in the artifact collection of the institute. Dr. Guillermo de Anda of the University of Yucatán, Merida, was kind enough to take me to the newly discovered Tzibichen Caves in Yucatán. Robert Schmittner of the Xibalba Diving Center in Tulum, Quintana Roo, led me to remote ce- notes with petroglyphs in the jungle. Dr. Karen Bassie-Sweet of the University of Calgary, Alberta, arranged for me to visit the otherwise closed Cueva de Jolja in Chiapas. Dr. Michael Smyth of Rowlins College, Orlando, Florida, helped me arrange a visit to remote Cueva Xcoch in western Yucatán and identified for me ceramics that I found in the cave. Several colleagues, ar- chaeologists, and friends provided me with images, and I am ix BBooookk 11..iinnddbb iixx 66//2200//1111 1100::4433 AAMM

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.