Ancient Maya Pottery

The ancient Maya produced a broad range of ceramics that has attracted concerted scholarly attention for over a century. Pottery sherds-the most abundant artifacts recovered from sites-reveal much about artistic expression, religious ritual, economic systems, cooking traditions, and cultural exchange in Maya society. Today, nearly every Maya archaeologist uses the type-variety classificatory framework for studying sherd collections. This impressive volume brings together many of the archaeologists signally involved in the analysis and interpretation of ancient Maya ceramics and represents new findings and state-of-the-art thinking. The result is a book that serves both as a valuable resource for archaeologists involved in pottery classification, analysis, and interpretation and as an illuminating exploration of ancient Mayan culture.

James John Aimers is associate professor of anthropology at the State University of New York, Geneseo.