The 1880s–1890s Study of the Quiché Popol Vuh

Record summary

The Popol Vuh became increasingly important to European and American scholars during the nineteenth century through study of the colonial-era K’iche’ manuscript tradition associated with Francisco Ximénez. It was sometimes treated as a direct window onto a remote pre-Columbian mythology, although the surviving text reflects Indigenous authorship, colonial-era writing, translation, and transmission. The lead is valuable for comparing mythic narratives with archaeology without treating them as literal excavation reports. It also exposes how translation and Romantic scholarship shaped ideas about Maya antiquity.