Bibliographical Essay
Some of the themes explored in this chapter are more deeply probed in Andrew K. Scherer and Stephen D. Houston, ‘Blood, Fire, Death: Covenants and Crisis among the Classic Maya', in V.
Tiesler and A. K. Scherer (eds.), Smoke, Flame, and the Human Body in Mesoamerican Ritual Practice (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2018). Key earlier works on the logic and themes of Maya sacrifice include Stephen D. Houston and Andrew K. Scherer, ‘La ofrenda maxima: el sacrificio humano en la parte central del area Maya', in L. Lopez Lujan and G. Olivier (eds.), El sacrificio humano en la tradition religiosa mesoamericana (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia and the Universidad Nacional Autònoma de Mexico, 2010), pp. 169-94; Karl Taube, ‘A Study of Classic Maya Scaffold Sacrifice', in E. Benson and G. Griffen (eds.), Maya Iconography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 331-51; Karl A. Taube, ‘The Birth Vase: Natal Imagery in Ancient Maya Myth and Ritual', in J. Kerr (ed.), The Maya Vase Book, vol. iv (New York: Kerr Associates, 1994), pp. 650-85.For ritual violence in Mesoamerica see Vera Tiesler (ed.), New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society (New York: Springer, 2007); Lòpez Lujan and Olivier (eds.), El sacrificio humano en la tradicion religiosa mesoamericana; Tiesler and Scherer (eds.), Smoke, Flame, and the Human Body in Mesoamerican Ritual Practice. Key early publications on Maya and Mesoamerican ritual violence are Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art (New York: George Braziller, 1986) and Elizabeth Hill Boone (ed.), Ritual Human Sacrifice in Mesoamerica (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1984). For a political history of the Maya, including warfare, see Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens (New York, Thames & Hudson, 2008).
For recent surveys of war and violence in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (and elsewhere in the Americas) see Andrew K. Scherer and John W. Verano (eds.), Embattled Places, Embattled Bodies: War in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2014); Heather Orr and Rex Koontz (eds.), Blood and Beauty: Organized Violence in the Art and Archaeology of Mesoamerica and Central America (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2009); Elizabeth Arkush and Mark W. Allen (eds.), The Archaeology of Warfare: Prehistories of Raiding and Conquest (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006); Richard J. Chacon and Ruben Mendoza (eds.), Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007); Axel E. Nielsen and William Walker (eds.), Warfare in Cultural Context: Practice, Agency, and the Archaeology of Violence (Tucson:University of Arizona Press, 2009). Two key earlier works on the subject include Ross Hassig, War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) and Ross Hassig, Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988). For ritual violence throughout the Americas see Richard J. Chacon and David H. Dye (eds.), The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians (New York: Springer, 2007).