UCL Institute of Archaeology
ARCL 3043
Maya Civilisation
Course Handbook
Term II 2016
Option, 0.5 unit
Small ceramic vessel (referred to as a “poison” bottle)
found in burial 77S-B/2 at Minanha, Belize. (Drawing by K. Kelsey, SARP)
Prerequisite: ARCL 2029 Archaeology of Mesoamerica
Time: Wed 9-11
Room: 612
Turnitin codes: Password = IoA1516; Turnitin ID = 2970200
Course co-ordinator: Elizabeth Graham
Bill Sillar and Claudia Zehrt
b.sillar@ucl.ac.uk
Room B16
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UCL - Institute of Archaeology
ARCL 3043 -- MAYA CIVILISATION -- Term II, 2016
 1. OVERVIEW
Short description
This course builds on the archaeology of Mesoamerica and provides an examination in
greater depth of Maya archaeology, ethnohistory, calendrics and hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Week-by-week summary
Lecturers
(until Liz returns)
Week
Date
Topic
1
2
3
4
13 January
20 January
27 January
03
February
10
February
15-19
February
24
February
02 March
Introduction to the Maya
Environment and resources of the Maya area
Maya architecture, caches, burials, tombs
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
9 March
16 March
23 March
Organisation of Maya society
Maya ideology, religion, and the Spanish
Conquest
R E A D I N G
Jago Cooper
Claudia Zehrt
David Pendergast
Claudia Zehrt
Claudia Zehrt
W E E K
Maya history, writing and the calendar
Origins of Maya states in the Late Preclassic
Maya states in the Early Classic &
Teotihuacan
The apogee of Maya states in the Late Classic
The Maya collapse and the Postclassic period
Eva Jobbova
Claudia Zehrt
David Pendergast
Claudia Zehrt
Claudia Zehrt
Basic texts, web sites, journals
The Ancient Maya, 6th edition, by Robert Sharer (with Loa Traxler), 2005. Earlier editions
are fine, especially for the first half of the course; the 6th edition has more up-to-date
information on the individual sites. MOST OF YOUR REQUIRED READING WILL BE
FROM THIS BOOK.
The Maya, 7th edition, by Michael D. Coe, 2005. This is a much less detailed and shorter
version than Sharer’s, but Coe is a wonderful writer, so it serves well as a basic
introduction for those who have never taken a course on the Maya or Mesoamerica.
Ancient Mexico and Central America by Susan Toby Evans, 2004, 2008 or 2013 is the text
we use in the 2nd-year course on Mesoamerica. It is an excellent reference text for
Mesoamerica in general.
The Classic Maya, by Stephen D. Houston and Takeshi Inomata, 2009. The chapters are
organised according to themes, which makes this very useful to consult for essays, as is
the case for Martin & Grube, below.
Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens by Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, 2000 and the
revised edition in 2008. This is the definitive work on what we know from epigraphy
about Maya rulers and Maya cities. It is published by Thames and Hudson and is well
laid-out with lots of beautiful photos and drawings, and is well written.
www.famsi.org is a wonderful on-line resource. It contains reports by archaeologists on a
variety of topics including art history and epigraphy as well as archaeology. It also has
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resources such as the Kerr Vase Book which displays rollouts of the paintings on Maya
vases.
www.mesoweb.com contains reports by Maya and Mesoamerican scholars in the fields of
archaeology, epigraphy, art history and ethnography. It also has an encyclopedia as well
as lists of publications.
http://decipherment.wordpress.com is a site that focuses on Maya iconography and
epigraphy. It is coordinated by David Stuart, a professor and Maya epigrapher at the
University of Texas at Austin. It is a site that Maya epigraphers use to report on interim
research. It has lots of up-to-date information on Maya writing and on developments in
the field. Great pictures as well but make sure to acknowledge the artist and source.
The website describes itself in the following way: ‘Maya Decipherment is a weblog
devoted to ideas and developments in ancient Maya epigraphy and related fields. We
welcome contributions and the participation of colleagues and students from around the
world.’
http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/handbook/ Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs by Harri
Kettunen and Christophe Helmke. This is a Mesoweb resource available to anyone
wishing to learn Maya hieroglyphs.
Journals: Ancient Mesoamerica, Latin American Antiquity, Antiquity, Cambridge
Archaeological Journal, Estudios de Cultural Maya, Arqueología Mexicana, Journal of
Field Archaeology, Journal of Archaeological Science.
Turnitin codes: Password = IoA1516; Turnitin ID = 2970200
Methods of assessment
This course is assessed by means of two essays:
First essay: 2,500 words, 50%, due: Wednesday, 2nd March
Second essay: 2,500 words, 50%, due: Wednesday, 27th April
Teaching methods: Illustrated lectures combined with discussion of core readings. Class
will be registered on Moodle.
Workload in terms:
Lectures/discussion = 20 hrs.
Private reading and research = 100 hrs.
Required essays = 60 hrs.
TOTAL = 180 hrs.
Prerequisite
Students planning to take the Maya course will normally be expected to have taken ARCL
2029, the Archaeology of Mesoamerica, which provides relevant background material.
Lamanai, Early Postclassic Buk-phase, A.D. 10001200
 2. AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND ASSESSMENT
Aims
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This course provides an introduction to the civilisation of the Precolumbian Maya. I expect
that students will already have taken the course on the Archaeology of Mesoamerica, ARCL
2029, and will be familiar with Mesoamerica as a culture area. My aim is to provide an
overview of Maya culture, society, environment, food production, settlement patterns,
architecture, calendrics, and aspects of material culture to increase awareness of the
importance of Maya contributions to civilisation. I also hope to increase awareness of the
rich cultural heritage of living Maya groups.
Objectives
On successful completion of this course a student should have developed a basic knowledge
of: 1) approaches to excavation and recovery in wet tropical environments, 2) humanenvironmental interaction in the humid tropics, 3) how data from archaeology, epigraphy,
ethnohistory, and ethnography are integrated, 4) the nature of the colonial encounter, and 4)
Maya culture history and the character of Precolumbian Maya urbanism.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the course, students should demonstrate:
• Excellent citation and referencing practices
• Expository writing skills
• Research skills
• Critical skills, particularly regarding source materials and their use
Coursework
Details on essays, their content, word length, suggested readings, and marking criteria are
detailed in a separate handout.
Chert small side-notched points from Tipu, Spanish Colonial period, probably late 17
century
th
 3. SCHEDULE AND SYLLABUS
Teaching schedule
Lectures will be held on Wednesdays from 9 to 11 a.m. in Room 612 at the Institute of
Archaeology, 31-34 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PY.
Bill Sillar and Claudia Zehrt will coordinate most of the lectures until Prof. Graham returns.
On 13th January there will be a lecture by Jago Cooper, on 27th January and 9th March there
will be lectures by David Pendergast, and on 2th February a lecture by Eva Jobbova.
Tutorials
5
We have no tutorials other than our two-hour class time. However, students will be expected
to discuss and respond to questions in the second hour.
Syllabus
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Week 1, 13 January, Introduction to the course
Jago Cooper
Dr. Jago Cooper is curator of the Americas section in the British Museum and has conducted
research and filming in the Maya area.
Who, what, where and when? History of the interest and awareness of the people we call
‘Maya’; a short history of Maya archaeology, and a review of approaches to the study of
Maya writing and archaeology. We will also review the handbook as well as essay due
dates.
Required: this handbook
Recommended:
Coe, Michael D. The Maya, Introduction; Sharer, The Ancient Maya, Preface & Introduction.
Evans, Susan Toby. Ancient Mexico and Central America, Ch 1, Ancient Mesoamerica, the
civilization and its antecedents.
_________________________________________________________________________
______
Week 2, 20 January, Environment and resources of the Maya area
Claudia Zehrt
Cultural setting, the Maya area, language roots, environmental zones, subsistence,
agricultural methods, plant and animal resources and economy.
Required
Sharer, Ch 1; Ch 3, pp. 120-133; Ch 11.
Recommended
• Restall, Matthew. 2004. Maya Ethnogenesis. Journal of Latin American Anthropology
9(1): 64-89.
• Graham, Elizabeth. 2011. Maya Christians and Their Churches in Sixteenth-Century
Belize, Chapter Three, pp. 59-62.
_________________________________________________________________________
________
Week 3, 27 January, Excavating Maya architecture, caches, burials, tombs
David Pendergast
David M. Pendergast, Curator Emeritus of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Dr.
Pendergast has worked in the Maya area for over 50 years and is one of the leading experts
on the excavation of monumental architecture.
Required
No required readings from Sharer but I encourage you to peruse or read one of the
recommended publications.
Strongly recommended
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Go to the library and look through any of the following publications by Coe, Pendergast,
Loten. My review article might provide some insight into the nature of monumental
excavation.
• Coe, William R. 1990. Excavations in the Great Plaza, North Terrace and North Acropolis
of Tikal, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia. INST ARCH DFB 10 COE, 6
vols.
• Pendergast, David M. Excavations at Altun Ha, Belize, 1964 to 1970. Royal Ontario
Museum, Toronto. INST ARCH DFB Qto PEN, 3 vols.
• Loten, H.S. and D.M. Pendergast, 1984. A Lexicon for Maya Archaeology. Archaeology
Monograph 8, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. ISSUE DESK LOT, 3 hrs.
• Graham, Elizabeth. 1993. Rats and Bats and Fluffy Stuff. A review of William R. Coe's
Excavations in the Great Plaza, North Terrace and North Acropolis of Tikal. Tikal Report
No. 14, Volumes I-VI, The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1990.
Antiquity: 67(256):660-665.
_________________________________________________________________________
________
Week 4, 3 February, Organisation of Maya society
Claudia Zehrt
Political and social economy, what elites ‘control’, markets, social organisation, settlement
patterns, population, families, social stratification, rulers and rulership.
Required
Sharer, Ch. 12; Ch 2, pp 73-80.
Recommended
• Gillespie, Susan D. 2000. Rethinking Ancient Maya Social Organization: Replacing
“Lineage” with “House.” American Antiquity 102: 467-84.
And/or take a look at any of the following to get a feel for how we look at settlement,
communities, and social organisation:
• Ashmore, Wendy. 1981, ed. Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns. University of New
Mexico Press, Albuquerque. INST ARCH DFB 100 ASH, 3 copies.
• Canuto, Marcello & Jason Yaeger. 2000. The Archaeology of Communities: A New World
Perspective. INST ARCH DE CAN, 1 copy.
• Golden, Charles and Greg Borstede, eds. 2004. Continuities and Changes in Maya
Archaeology: Perspectives at the Millennium. Routledge, London. INST ARCH DFB 100
GOL, 1 copy.
• Lohse, Jon C. & Fred Valdez, Jr. 2004. Ancient Maya Commoners. INST ARCH DFB 100
LOH, 1 copy.
• Wilk, Richard & Wendy Ashmore, eds. 1988. Household and Community in the
Mesoamerican Past. INST ARCH DFB 100 WIL, 2 copies.
_________________________________________________________________________
_________
Week 5, 10 February, Maya ideology, religion, and the Spanish Conquest
Claudia Zehrt
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What is religion? Classic Maya spirits and symbols, rulers as ‘lords’, shamans, daykeepers,
archaeology and religion, cosmology, gods, creation, sanctioning rulers, the universe, the
World Tree, religion and the Conquest.
Required
Sharer, Ch. 13; Epilogue.
Recommended
• Graham, Elizabeth, Scott E. Simmons and Christine D. White. 2013. The Spanish
Conquest and the Maya collapse: how ‘religious’ is change? World Archaeology 45(1): 125.
• Houston, Stephen D. and David Stuart. 1989. The Way Glyph: Evidence for “CoEssences” among the Classic Maya. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, vol. 30.
Center for Maya Research, Washington, D.C. INST ARCH DFB 600 RES.
And/or have a look through:
• Bassie-Sweet, Karen. 1991. From the Mouth of the Dark Cave. University of Oklahoma
Press, Norman. INST ARCH DFB 100 BAS, 1 copy.
• Graña Behrens, Daniel, Nikolai Grube, Christian M. Prager, Frauke Sachse, Stefanie
Teufel and Elisabeth Wagner. 2004. Continuity and Change: Maya religious practices in
temporal perspective. 5th European Maya Conference. INST ARCH DFB 200 Qto GRA, 1
copy.
• Grube, Nikolai, Eva Eggebrecht & Matthias Seidel (eds.) 2006. Maya: Divine Kings of the
Rain Forest. Könneman, Köln. INST ARCH DFB 100 Qto GRU, 1 copy.
•
Prufer, Keith M. & James E. Brady. 2005. Stone houses and earth lords : Maya
religion in the cave context. INST ARCH DFB 100 PRU, 1 copy.
•
• Taube, Karl. 1992(32). The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan. Studies in Precolumbian Art
& Archaeology, No. 32. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Full text available on-line;
also available at the Issue Desk IOA TAU, 3 hour loan.
_________________________________________________________________________
_________
Week 6, 15-19 February, R E A D I N G W E E K
_______________________________________________________________
_______
Week 7, 24 February, Maya history, writing, the calendar
Eva Jobbova
The history of decipherment, Maya glyphs, the writing system, the calendar and the world
that didn’t end in 2012.
Required
Sharer, Ch 3, pp. 99-120, 134-152. See also Coe, Ch. 9.
Recommended
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• Bricker, Harvey & Victoria R. Bricker. 1983. Classic Maya Prediction of Solar Eclipses.
Current Anthropology 24: 1-24.
• Houston, Stephen D. & Alfonso Lacadena Garcia-Gallo. Maya Epigraphy at the
Millennium: Personal Notes. In Charles Golden and Greg Borstede (eds.), 2004,
Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology: Perspectives at the Millennium. INST
ARCH DFB 100 GOL, 1 copy.
• Matthews, Peter. 1991. Classic Maya Emblem Glyphs. In Culbert, T. Patrick, ed., Classic
Maya Political History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. INST ARCH DFB 200
CUL; ANTHROPOLOGY TK 28 CUL.
• Proskouriakoff, Tatiana. 1060. Historical Implications of a Pattern of Dates at Piedras
Negras. American Antiquity 25: 44-75.
• Voss, A.W. 2001. Astronomy and Mathematics. In Nikolai Grube, et al. (eds.) Maya:
Divine Kings of the Rain Forest. INST ARCH DFB 100 Qto GRU, 1 copy.
_________________________________________________________________________
________
Week 8, 2 March, Origins of Maya states in the Late Preclassic
Claudia Zehrt
Required
Sharer, Ch 6, pp. 223-224, 251-286. See also Coe, Ch. 2, 3.
Recommended
I’ll summarise the emergence of Maya civilisation, but for further reading, Sharer, Ch. 4; Ch.
5, pp. 177-185, 201-222.
_________________________________________________________________________
________
Week 9, 9 March, Maya states in the Early Classic and Teotihuacan
David Pendergast
There are far fewer inscriptions from this period than exist from the Late Classic, but we will
look at the sites occupied in the Early Classic, and especially at the rulers who seem to be
connected to the great city of Teotihuacan in Mexico.
Required
Sharer, Ch 7, pp. 287-288, 292-317, 321-342, 358-376. See also Coe, Ch 4.
Recommended
• Wright, L.E. 2005. In Search of Yax Nuun Ayiin I: Revisiting the Tikal Project’s Burial 10.
Ancient Mesoamerica 16(1), pp. 89-100. (Yax Nuun Ayiin was thought to have been from
Teotihuacan.)
• Braswell, G.E. (ed.) 2003. The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic
Interaction. University of Texas Press, Austin. INST ARCH DFB 100 BRA, 2 copies 1-wk
loan, 1 copy standard. (This is an edited book, but you might want to look through to see
the various ways in which connections with Teotihuacan are explored; for example, Juan
Pedro Laporte’s chapter, ‘Architectural aspects of interaction between Tikal and
Teotihuacan during the Early Classic period’, pp. 199-216.)
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_________________________________________________________________________
________
Week 10, 16 March, the apogee of Maya states in the Late Classic
Claudia Zehrt
This is the best known period in Maya research. We will look at the major cities, their
architecture, their intensive warfare, and the seeds of the collapse.
Required
Sharer, Ch 8, pp. 377-403, 413-421, 431-451, 492-494, 495-497. See also Coe, Ch 5.
_________________________________________________________________________
_________
Week 11, 23 March, the Collapse and beyond
Claudia Zehrt
This week’s topic covers a great deal of territory, but we’ll attempt to look at the aftermath of
collapse, the key traits of the Postclassic period, and the Spanish Conquest, particularly in
Belize.
Required
Sharer, Chs 9, 10. See also Coe, Chs 7,8.
Recommended
• Aimers, J.J. 2007. What Maya Collapse? Terminal Classic Variation in the Maya
Lowlands. Journal of Archaeological Research 15, pp. 329-377.
• Graham, E., S.E. Simmons & C.D. White. 2013. The Spanish Conquest and the Maya
Collapse: How ‘religious’ is change? World Archaeology 45(1): 1-25.
_________________________________________________________________________
________
 4. ONLINE RESOURCES
Online reading list
Given that the required readings are from the Sharer text, there is no online reading list for
this course. The full text of this handbook as well as copies or links to recommended
readings will be available on Moodle.
Moodle
The enrolment or access code for Moodle is: ajaw
All of you should also be registered automatically for access to ARCL 3043 on Moodle. If
you have any problems, contact c.frearson@ucl.ac.uk
 5. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
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Libraries and other resources
In addition to the Library of the Institute of Archaeology, other libraries with holdings of
interest are the DMS Watson Science Library and the Anthropology. There is also the
Centre for Anthropology library at the British Museum, accessible through the North
Entrance.
Attendance
A register will be taken at each class. If you are unable to attend a class, please notify the
lecturer by e-mail. Departments are required to report each student’s attendance to UCL
Registry at frequent intervals throughout each term. Students are expected to attend at least
70% of classes.
Information for intercollegiate and interdepartmental students
Students enrolled in Departments outside the Institute should collect hard copy of the
Institute’s coursework guidelines from Judy Medrington’s office, Room 411A.
Dyslexia
If you have dyslexia or any other disability, please make your lecturers aware of this. Please
discuss with your lecturers whether there is any way in which they can help you. Students
with dyslexia are reminded to indicate this on each piece of coursework.
Feedback:
In trying to make this course as effective as possible, we welcome feedback from students
during the course of the year. All students are asked to give their views on the course in an
anonymous questionnaire, which will be circulated at one of the last sessions of the course.
These questionnaires are taken seriously and help the Course Coordinator to develop the
course. The summarized responses are considered by the Institute's Staff-Student
Consultative Committee, Teaching Committee, and by the Faculty Teaching Committee.
If you are concerned about any aspect of this course, I would appreciate it if you would
approach me first about it. If you feel this is not appropriate, or certainly if you feel
consultation with me has not proved satisfactory, you should consult your Personal Tutor,
Year Tutor, t he Academic Administrator (Judy Medrington), or the Chair of the Teaching
Committee, Karen Wright.
Maya church at Lamanai, built ca.
1560s
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