When were Maya codices painted?
The extant Maya codices are generally believed to have been painted in theLate Postclassic period (c. 1250–1520), although hieroglyphic writing contin-ued to be practiced in secret for several generations after the Spanish Conquest.They reflect the concerns of a society that underwent significant changes at theend of the Classic era, including the abandonment of centers throughout theMaya lowlands during the ninth through eleventh centuries, a process Andrews,Andrews, and Robles C. (2003:153) characterize as a “pan-lowland collapse.”6Two scenarios have been proposed for the northern lowlands: large-scale ar-chitectural activity may have ceased for more than a century, or, as new datasuggest, monumental construction may have begun at Mayapán and in coastalQuintana Roo earlier than once thought, meaning there was no significant gapin public construction activities as previously believed (Andrews, Andrews,and Robles C. 2003:152). Mayapán’s occupation has traditionally been datedfrom c. A.D. 1200 to 1441, but a growing body of evidence indicates it may havebegun by c. A.D. 1050 (Milbrath and Peraza Lope 2003). Although Mayapán
What are the new approaches explored in the present work?
The new approaches explored in the present work are the result of twodevelopments. First, our effort has been interdisciplinary. Collectively, the pa-pers bring together a traditionally trained historian, two art historians, threearchaeologists, two anthropologists, and an astronomer. A significant numberamong these participants can rightly call themselves “epigraphers.” Second,the convening and reconvening of conferences on the same topic, with thepapers revised in between, resulted in more considered, in-depth criticismamong the participants, who were able to develop a more thorough under-standing of one another’s work. Some consideration of matters pertaining tothe Madrid Codex had been ongoing at Tulane University since 1987, whenVictoria Bricker offered the first of three graduate seminars on that text andlater coedited, with Vail, a volume of papers presented in the first of the semi-nars.16 In effect then, the present text is the culmination of more than fifteenyears of interdisciplinary group activity. Our insistence on inviting a nonpar-ticipant to provide in the concluding chapter an appraisal of the context of thepresent work within the general field of Mesoamerican studies and a briefappraisal of broader anthropological questions and problems engaged in thiswork, it is hoped, will offer further access to the material, generally thought torequire considerable effort to digest, to the wider community of scholars. Theintroductory and concluding chapters serve as bookends to the more substantivematerial within. We hope the general reader who begins with these chapterswill discover themes relevant to his or her particular sphere of inquiry. In addi-tion, as editors, we have made every effort to make the text readable to studentsof the allied disciplines that converge on the study of Mesoamerican codices.