Sponsored by: archaeologynow.org
Every culture on earth has a creation myth–we all want to know where we came from. Popol Vuh, the K’ichee Maya book of creation, was recorded in glyphic writing, transmitted orally, and eventually transcribed by Dominican missionaries in the sixteenth century, a few years after the European irruption. It is an extraordinary document of the human historical imagination. Beginning with the deeds of Maya gods in the darkness of a primeval sea, it ends with the radiant splendor of the Maya lords who founded the K’ichee kingdom in the Guatemalan highlands. A scholar of Maya origin interprets this classic tale from an indigenous cultural perspective.