×


 x 

Shopping cart
Prudence M. Rice - Maya Calendar Origins - 9780292716926 - V9780292716926
Stock image for illustration purposes only - book cover, edition or condition may vary.

Maya Calendar Origins

€ 36.97
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for Maya Calendar Origins Paperback. Presents a thesis about the origins and development of the calendrical system. This title shows how time became materialized - transformed into status objects such as monuments that encoded calendrical or temporal concerns - as well as politicized, becoming the foundation for societal order, political legitimization, and wealth. Series: The William and Bettye Nowlin Series in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere. Num Pages: 280 pages, 74 figures. BIC Classification: 1KLC; JHMC. Category: (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly. Dimension: 279 x 195 x 19. Weight in Grams: 852.

In Maya Political Science: Time, Astronomy, and the Cosmos, Prudence M. Rice proposed a new model of Maya political organization in which geopolitical seats of power rotated according to a 256-year calendar cycle known as the May. This fundamental connection between timekeeping and Maya political organization sparked Rice's interest in the origins of the two major calendars used by the ancient lowland Maya, one 260 days long, and the other having 365 days. In Maya Calendar Origins, she presents a provocative new thesis about the origins and development of the calendrical system.

Integrating data from anthropology, archaeology, art history, astronomy, ethnohistory, myth, and linguistics, Rice argues that the Maya calendars developed about a millennium earlier than commonly thought, around 1200 BC, as an outgrowth of observations of the natural phenomena that scheduled the movements of late Archaic hunter-gatherer-collectors throughout what became Mesoamerica. She asserts that an understanding of the cycles of weather and celestial movements became the basis of power for early rulers, who could thereby claim "control" over supernatural cosmic forces. Rice shows how time became materialized—transformed into status objects such as monuments that encoded calendrical or temporal concerns—as well as politicized, becoming the foundation for societal order, political legitimization, and wealth. Rice's research also sheds new light on the origins of the Popol Vuh, which, Rice believes, encodes the history of the development of the Mesoamerican calendars. She also explores the connections between the Maya and early Olmec and Izapan cultures in the Isthmian region, who shared with the Maya the cosmovision and ideology incorporated into the calendrical systems.

Product Details

Format
Paperback
Publication date
2007
Publisher
University of Texas Press United States
Number of pages
280
Condition
New
Series
The William and Bettye Nowlin Series in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere
Number of Pages
280
Place of Publication
Austin, TX, United States
ISBN
9780292716926
SKU
V9780292716926
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Prudence M. Rice
Prudence M. Rice is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Reviews for Maya Calendar Origins

Goodreads reviews for Maya Calendar Origins


Subscribe to our newsletter

News on special offers, signed editions & more!