The Mayan Book of the Chilam Balam of Tizimin Mayan Prophecies 1539-1800

Description

Only nine documents of the “Chilam Balam” survive. These documents of the Chilam Balam describe the native Yucatec Mayan worldview from at least the time of the arrival of the Spaniards five hundred years ago. Since 1975, Dr. Richard N. Luxton became fascinated by and worked toward understanding the Books of Chilam Balam. He spent years translating and annotating the Tizimin, and the Chumayal before it, diligently going line-by-line over a facsimile copy of the original Tizimin in Roman script, but in the language of the Yucatec Maya. Richard N. Luxton worked with his Mayan friends in the Yucatan, both Don Pablo Canche Balam–their friendship is retold in an earlier work, The Mysteries of the Mayan Hieroglyph, and Don Valentino Vargas Chulin, on both translations. Without their contributions, the Mayan gospels of the Chilam Balam would have continued to be opaque and hidden. Dr. Richard Luxton’s book, The Mayan Book of the Chilam Balam of Tizimin, is a connection back to the Mayan hieroglyphic tradition in the way a single metaphor and phrase represents a long process of thought admirably captured in a form of Roman script shorthand. The “Chilam Balams” were not written for outsiders, and that is their greatest value. The Tizimin has been translated into English twice before, but never as Dr. Richard N. Luxton has done, transcribed line-by-line from the original, and then meticulously adhered to by a line-by-line translation, like he did in the Chumayal.