Looking for Sources (Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica)

by fremdlaender

I recently found this subreddit and this is my first post, so excuse me if there's a better place for such questions. Also, I really hope I use proper terminology...

For story-writing-purposes I'm searching for information about Mesoamerica before the European discovery of the Americas. I have of course very basic ideas, but the more I know the better I can tell how to properly interpret it. Now, I know this is a rather broad and unspecific question, but here's what's mostly important for me:

  • The subjects should have to be Aztec and/ or Mayan civilizations (I know they hardly were at their height at the same time, or at least the Maya already had gone through their mysterious decline) at the respective time when they were a high culture
  • Any information regarding said collapse of the Maya would be great. Wikipedia is very vague and altough I suspect we just don't know, mysterious declines sound very intriguing
  • The main topics should include religion and mythology, social structure and warfare. Astronomy, architecture and art and the famous Maya Calendar would also be very interesting. A quick rundown of how advanced they were in terms of technology and mathematics would be also apprechiated.
  • What I'm not really interested in is daily life (which I guess wasn't very different from classical or medieval life in Eurasia), agriculture, historical kings and wars, or generally speaking, a 'timeline'. Of course you can't really untie this from the rest, but it shouldn't be the focus.
  • Has to be available English, or even better German (although I doubt there's much to be found)

I guess I'm sounding rather pretentious here, I'm aware how this is a huge chunk of information and can't possibly be explained in one or two books in the way it would deserve and I'm also aware that you hardly can answer a question like 'How were the Aztecs/ Mayas?' without reaching very, very deep. It's just a rather unused, or even disregarded setting and for someone who never learned much about it bar 'they were there for some time and they all died once the Europeans came' it's pretty hard to get a feeling for cultures who existed a very long time but are so 'alienated' from ours.

Anyway, thanks everyone in advance for everything you can point me at. Just keep in mind that I'm no historian and in my case, less is probably more.

ahalenia

I love Miguel León-Portilla! You might consider reading his:

For visual art, the show catalog, Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya is amazing.

cociyo

On the Maya Collapse:

Aimers, James J. 2007. What Maya Collapse? Terminal Classic Variation in the Maya Lowlands. Journal of Archaeological Research, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 239 - 377.

Webster, David. 2002. The Fall of the Ancient Maya: Solving the Mystery of the Maya Collapse. Thames and Hudson, New York.

On Maya society before the collapse:

Houston, Stephen D., and Takeshi Inomata. The Classic Maya. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Sharer, Robert J., with Loa P. Traxler. 2005. The Ancient Maya. 6th edition. Stanford University Press, Stanford.

On Maya mathematics and calendrics:

Stuart, David S. 2011. The Order of Days: The Maya World and the Truth about 2012. Harmony Books, New York.

On Maya technology, I would just like to note something which you will gather from the aforementioned sources: we are talking about a "Stone Age" society, as inapt as the term may be, with a complex and highly calligraphic writing system and conventions about social rank and decorum as complicated as anything pre-Revolutionary France or feudal Japan ever came up with. That is to say, Classic Maya society may not have produced a lot of professional engineers - some of their most visually impressive buildings are basically big piles of mud and stones with nice masonry structures on top - but social life and intellectual life were both very complex, if somewhat alien to you and me.

Mictlantecuhtli

There is a constantly updated book list you can find in the side bar.