Summary
In 1839, American explorer and diplomat John Lloyd Stephens entered the jungles of southern Mexico where he saw the great ruins of abandoned cities filled with pyramids, palaces, and carved stones. Stephens had rediscovered the world of the ancient Maya, a civilization that had flourished within the foreboding jungles of Mesoamerica. This civilization built towering buildings, domesticated maize, studied the heavens to understand the regular movements of celestial bodies, and developed their own system of mathematics, but this advanced society mysterious declined nearly a thousand years before Stephens arrived. Customs, religious beliefs, human sacrifices, and other cultural traits are all explored in The Maya, a new title about the most advanced of the pre-Columbian American civilizations.
Specifications
Full-color and black-and-white photographs and illustrations. Maps. Index. Bibliography. Glossary. Chronology. Timeline. Web sites. Further resources.
About the Author(s)
Shane Mountjoy, Ph.D., resides in York, Nebraska where he is associate professor of history and vice president for Student Development/Dean of Students at York College. Mountjoy has received recognition from students and peers as an outstanding teacher. He has earned degrees from York College, Lubbock Christian University, the University of Nebraska, and the University of Missouri. Mountjoy is the author of more than a dozen books and appears in the documentary The Lost Civilizations of North America.