Chichén Itza

Mayan ruins and museums

This page provides links to posts relating to Mayan archaeological sites and museums of Mayan culture in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. The aim of the posts is to provide some information about these places but primarily to present a pictorial record of the ancient Mayan culture.

Background reading

Presented here is a selection of books and articles providing some background to the history, architecture and culture of the Maya. More will be added as and when they become available. Some of these are very large files due to the nature of the contents but we hope that doesn’t cause too much inconvenience.

Books

The world of the Ancient Maya, John S Henderson, John Murray, London, 1998, 329 pages.

Maya Script, a civilisation and its writing, Maria Longhena, Abbeville Press, London, 2000, 180 pages.

The Maya – an architectural and landscape guide, (Guía de arqitectura y paisaje Mayas), published jointly by the Junta de Andalucía y Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México/Sevilla, 2010. This book covers the major Mayan sites in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. Text in both Spanish and English. It is presented in 4 sections due to its huge size and the limitations placed upon any downloading by WordPress. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. 585 pages in total.

The Maya, Michael D Cole, Thames and Hudson, London, 8th edition, 2011, 280 pages.

Ciudades Mesoamericanas, Publicaciones Mesoamericans, Cuidad de Guatemala, 2012, 311 pages. In Spanish only but is well illustrated and would still be of interest to non-Spanish speakers/readers.

Articles

In the summer of 2025 an exhibition took place in the World Museum, Liverpool entitled Mayas: revelation of an endless time. This was the only city in Britain where this exhibition was staged, a bit of a coup for Liverpool.

The ubiquitous catalogue that always accompanies such exhibitions provided a series of articles to put the items on display into some sort of context. Hopefully they will also be useful here when looking at the pictures of the Mayan archaeological sites (and items in the museums) in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras presented below.

Maya – Revelation of an Endless Time – Introduction

The Exhibition

Gods or Ancestors – Worldview of the Ancient Mayas

A World Surrounded by the Sea – Maya Societies on the East Coast of the Yucatan Peninsula

Palenque, the Eternal Portal to the Pre-Hispanic Past

Mayas in Tabasco and Chiapas

Maya Settlements and Worldview – The Northern Peninsula of Yucatan

Maya Civilization on the Western Yucatan Peninsula

Click on the images to get to the post for a specific archaeological site or museum.