Anonymous, Popol Vuh [Book of the Mat/ Book of the Community]

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The Popol Vuh is the single most important book written by the ancient Maya to have survived the Spanish conquest. It is one of the world’s great works of literature, containing an account of the creation of the world, the acts of gods and heroes at the beginning of time before the first dawn, and the history of the highland Maya people themselves. In addition to being a valuable resource for scholars, it is also a sublime work of literature, comparable with other great epic poems of the ancient world such as the Iliad and Odyssey of Greece, and the Ramayana and Mahabharata of India. The Popol Vuh was written by anonymous members of the K’iche’ nobility, a branch of the Maya that dominated the highlands of …

2199 words

Citation: Christenson, Allen. "Popol Vuh". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 October 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=27762, accessed 18 April 2024.]

27762 Popol Vuh 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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