Any consideration of ancient Mesoamerica, and more particularly the lowland Maya region, must include the great site of Tikal, Guatemala. Excavation and research were conducted at Tikal under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the government of Guatemala from 1956 through 1969. The painstaking analysis of the results of those years of fieldwork continues, and the results will be published in a projected total of 39 final reports. This volume includes facsimile editions of the first 11 numbers of the final reports, on various topics relevant to the early excavations at Tikal, carried out by the University Museum. University Museum Monograph 64

The primary question addressed in this book focuses on how the ancient Maya in the northern Petén Basin sustained large populations during the Late Classic period.

Excavations in Residential Areas of Tikal—Nonelite Groups Without Shrines is a two-volume presentation of the excavations carried out in and near small residential structures at Tikal, Guatemala, beginning in 1961. These reports show that Tikal was more than a ceremonial center; in addition to its numerous temples, the great Maya city was home to a large population of people. These volumes look at the residential structures themselves as well as domestic artifacts such as burials, ceramic test pits, chultuns. Tikal Report 20A is a descriptive presentation of the excavation data and includes nearly two hundred illustrations. Together with Tikal Report 20B, which reviews and interprets this data, this report augments the data presented in Tikal Reports 19 and 21.

The essays in this collection explore the history of tourism and its promotion and development throughout Latin American and the Caribbean in the twentieth century.

To the modern eye, the architects at Chich’en Itza produced some of the most mysterious structures in ancient Mesoamerica. The purpose and cultural influences behind this architecture seem left to conjecture. The people who created and lived around this stunning site may seem even more mercurial. Near the structure known today as the Great Ball Court and within the interior of the Lower Temple of the Jaguar, a mural depicts a female Mayan astronomer called K'uk'ul Ek' Tuyilaj. Weaving together archaeology, mathematics, history, and astronomy, Calculating Brilliance brings to light the discovery by this Mayan astronomer, which is recorded in the Venus Table of the Dresden Codex. As the book demonstrates, this brilliant discovery reverberated throughout Mayan science. But it has remained obscured to modern eyes. Jumping from the vital contributions of K'uk'ul Ek' Tuyilaj, Gerardo Aldana y Villalobos critically reframes science in the pre-Columbian world. He reexamines the historiography of the Dresden Codex and contextualizes the Venus Table relative to other Indigenous literature. From a perspective anchored to Indigenous cosmologies and religions, Aldana y Villalobos delves into how we may understand Indigenous science and discovery—both its parallels and divergences from modern globalized perspectives of science. Calculating Brilliance brings different intellectual threads together across time and space, from the Classic to the Postclassic, the colonial period to the twenty-first century to offer a new vision for understanding Mayan astronomy.