Researching the Maya

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When we started working on our most recent novel, Mayan Interface, we visited the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula, talked with people there, and took lots of pictures. At right is the huge stone arch at Kabah, a monumental gateway to the past — much like the one that Lydia gazes at and wonders, “Where will this gateway lead me?”

We also read every authoritative book we could get our hands on and attended a workshop on glyphs. In our story, four roughly-carved glyphs hold the key to a mysterious and deadly reality. Can Lydia translate the strange symbols fast enough to prevent more deaths — including her own?

“They’re Chac masks. Images of the rain god, but they look like monsters to me.” …“Monsters, yes. But not as in our monster movies. These are monstrous’ in the sense of being marvelous, extraordinary, supremely powerful.” (Photo from Kabah, quote from Mayan Interface.
“Caan sees a ruined city, empty of human souls. Many of the temples and palaces are crumbling and half-consumed by the encroaching,
 low-lying jungle. Some have been reduced to piles of rubble as serpentine vines tug and pull at loose boulders and stones.” (Photo from Uxmal, quote from Mayan Interface.)
“Like most of the other houses in the village, Lydia’s hut consisted of one room with a clay floor and walls made from straight, slender tree-trunk poles with flexible branches woven through them like a giant basket.” (Photo from the village of Xocen, quote from Mayan Interface.)

 

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