Wauchopes study of modern Mayan houses made an important contribution to archaeology both in general and specific terms. Not only does he cover the filed of ancient and modern houses as to plan and construction, but he also covers their historical, ethnological and sociological aspects.The implication of the research is two-fold. The integration of the life of the past population with that of the living exercises a humanizing influence on the extremities of modern archaeological technique, and a survey of village household life gives a more continuous picture of culture evolution in Middle American than the concentration of research on the essentially specialized ceremonial centers. It is also very important for an understanding of these monumental centers to know something of the nature of the population concentration and the extent of the social units affiliated to such centers.---quoted from G.C. Vaillant in a review of the book, 1938

Color-and the symbolic ways that the Maya of Mexico and Central America paint their homes, places of worship, and dwellings for their dead-is the focus of this breathtakingly beautiful and achingly poignant new book. No one who picks up this volume will ever again think of the region solely for its sunny beaches and ancient ruins, nor picture the Maya as a vanished people of the distant past. Through dazzling photographs, vivid travel tales, and the Mayas own poetic voices, readers will come to know the modern Maya as remarkable survivors who continue to sow their deified corn, commune with their gods, and paint life into their color-drenched village walls. Nearly a decade ago Jeffrey Becom (author and photographer of Mediterranean Color) turned his attention from the Old World to the New and together with his wife, Sally Jean Aberg, discovered a realm where color is not merely a matter of preference but a powerful statement of belief. Come along as the pair trek through a steamy jungle in search of ancient murals, join a highland shaman giving birth to the soul of a house, and crisscross the parched Yucatán Peninsula as villagers celebrate the Days of the Dead with dynamite, incense, flowers, rum, prayers, and paint. In the process they discover that the colors of a corn yellow house, a blood red altar, and a jade green tomb serve as a connective cord stretching back to the painted pyramids. Maya Color is a visual and verbal feast. New York Times critic Paul Goldberger calls Becoms images "poised between the making of art and the documentation of architecture. . . . He takes a tiny swath of the vernacular landscape and makes of it a composition with the brilliance and intensity of an abstract painting."

This volume offers new calendrical models and methodologies for reading, dating, and interpreting the general significance of the Madrid Codex. The longest of the surviving Maya codices, this manuscript includes texts and images painted by scribes conversant in Maya hieroglyphic writing, a written means of communication practiced by Maya elites from the second to the fifteenth centuries A.D. Some scholars have recently argued that the Madrid Codex originated in the Petén region of Guatemala and postdates European contact. The contributors to this volume challenge that view by demonstrating convincingly that it originated in northern Yucatán and was painted in the Pre-Columbian era. In addition, several contributors reveal provocative connections among the Madrid and Borgia group of codices from Central Mexico. Contributors include: Harvey M. Bricker, Victoria R. Bricker, John F. Chuchiak IV, Christine L. Hernández, Bryan R. Just, Merideth Paxton, and John Pohl. Additional support for this publication was generously provided by the Eugene M. Kayden Fund at the University of Colorado.