Customer Reviews

Lost Cities of the Maya (Discoveries)

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I've been interested in Mayan culture since I was a kid. I went to the Yucatan for the first time in 1999 and used this as a light refresher course on the region's 'discovery'.

It's a great little intro containing lots of details about the early adventurers - and their ideosyncracies. There are great pictures and illustrations which go along with the text. It all links up really well and takes you through many aspects of the main cities that have been uncovered.

That said, it doesn't tell you much about the history of the Mayan culture. You won't come away understanding anything about the Mayan calendar, social customs or their religion. It's really just a good yarn about the mad blokes who roamed the forests looking for adventure...and found it.

While this book is small in size it is large on content with great pictures of many Mayan sites. There are also many pictures from early expeditions that give you a real understanding of what these famous sites were like when first discovered. I have been to many of these places all over the Mayan lands but had not seen these early photos. There is a lot of information in this book for anyone who wants an overview of Mayan history, lands and sacred sites. I highly recommend it. Larry Schumacher

Purchasing this book in a European airport bookshop ultimately lead to a quest that took some 9 years to fulfill only the first step, and caused me to get a tattoo. That being said, I would like to say that the book itself is kind of a history of the exploration and restoration of some of the Temples. I found it easy reading, accurate reading and wonderful photos and illustrations (showing the pre restored state and restored state of some buildings, its amazing how well they did). There are chapters with actual mayan mythologies as well, and these are some of the most interesting and revealing parts of the book. The tattoo i got is illustrated in the book, its a panel depicting the god of the toltecs (quetzalcoatl) KulKulKan, a snake like bird figure with a human head coming out of his mouth. The quest I undertook is to see as much of the ruins and paintings as I can, and recently I visited Chichen Itza, and climbed the huge pyramid, "el Castillo". WOW. thats all i can say. its a humbling experience.