Exhibit Poster
Presented in conjunction with the
Third Annual Maya Symposium
by Masaki Noguchi and Victoria R. Bricker
October 29-November 8, 2004
The holdings of the Latin American Library include a large number of rubbings of Classic Maya inscriptions by Merle Greene Robertson and an important collection of documents, written in the Maya language of Yucatán, dating from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, as well as published works illustrating the literary virtuosity of the Maya of the Northern Lowlands. Featured in the exhibition are rubbings of Classic period texts, facsimiles of Postclassic Maya codices, handwritten documents from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, multiple editions of four books of Chilam Balam (those from Chumayel, Chan Kan, Kaua, and Mani), and twentieth-century examples of Maya literature. Of special interest is the relationship between a Spanish chapbook containing a tale from A Thousand and One Nights and Maya texts in three Books of Chilam Balam, suggesting that some eighteenth-century Maya literature was inspired by Spanish (and ultimately Arabic) sources.
