Popol Vuh

From Citizendium
Revision as of 08:27, 7 May 2009 by imported>Joe Quick (simplify sentence)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is a stub and thus not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

The Popol Vuh, or "book of council" tells the Maya creation story. Much of what modern scholars have learned about pre-Columbian Maya cosmogony comes from from a version of the Popol Vuh that was written down in the mid sixteenth century by an unknown K'iche' author, probably a member of the elite, in his own language using the newly introduced Latin script of the Spanish conquistadors and from a copy of that text made by a Spanish priest, Francisco Ximenez. Scenes from the Popol Vuh are commonly found in friezes and on ceramics excavated at pre-Hispanic archaeological sites in the Maya region and the story's legacy persists in a variety of ways in modern Maya cultures.