Author Description

Two experts decipher Mayan writing in terms of its meaning and aesthetics, counting it as one of the world's great calligraphic traditions. Coe (anthropology emeritus, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale U.) and Kerr, whose rollout camera revolutionized the study of Mayan pictorial ceramics and their texts, explore the script's origins, character, and writing techniques as well as the exalted world of the Maya artist-scribes who kept the holy books. Escribanos continued the role, though not the hieroglyphics, in post-conquest Mexico. Includes 117 color plates, other text figures, and notes on a type of Maya Rosetta Stone. 9.75x13