Ancient civilizations-2

General works

The comprehensive, multivolume series “Handbook of Middle American Indians,” especially vol. 2–3, Gordon R. Willey (ed.), Archaeology of Southern Mesoamerica (1965), and vol. 10–11, Gordon F. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal (eds.), Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica (1971), is indispensable. Summaries of more recent developments are found in Jeremy A. Sabloff (ed.), Archaeology (1981), vol. 1 in the series “Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians.” Historical sources include Francis Augustus MacNutt (trans. and ed.), Letters of Cortes: The Five Letters of Relation from Fernando Cortes to the Emperor Charles V, 2 vol. (1908, reprinted 1977); and Bernal Díaz Del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, 5 vol., ed. and trans. by Alfred Percival Maudsley (1908–16, reprinted as The Conquest of New Spain, 4 vol., 1967). See also Muriel Porter Weaver, The Aztecs, Maya, and Their Predecessors: Archaeology of Mesoamerica, 2nd ed. (1981); Walter Krickeberg, Altmexikanische Kulturen, new ed. (1975); Jacques Soustelle, The Four Suns: Recollections and Reflections of an Ethnologist in Mexico (1971; originally published in French, 1967), and Arts of Ancient Mexico (1966; originally published in French, 1966); Suzanne Abel-Vidor et al., Between Continents/Between Seas: Precolumbian Art of Costa Rica (1981); Anna Benson Gyles and Chlöe Sayer, Of Gods and Men: Mexico and the Mexican Indian (1980); Michael D. Coe, Mexico, 3rd rev. ed. (1984); and Joyce Kelly, The Complete Visitor’s Guide to Mesoamerican Ruins (1982).