Reconstructing the Past

Description

This memorial volume dedicated to Hal Ball gathers a selection of papers on the ancient past of the Maya, Mesoamerica, or Central American peoples. It reflects the diversity of the honorand’s interests in the ancient worlds represented and mirrors the varied ways in which scholars approach their reconstruction. The chapters include examinations of the sites of Ecab, Palenque, Cuello and Lamanai; the rollicking tale of an episode in the nineteenth-century history of Copan; a group of general studies that embrace a wide range of topics, from Maya warfare to the Lamanai Temple type and an unusual class of artifact found in non-Maya Mesoamerica; a look at housework at Cihuatán and at stone sculpture in El Salvador; and a final chapter that suggests what one can learn from working in the tropical setting in which all of the research recounted here has taken place.