Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T15:53:08.835Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

REVISITING THE CANEK MANUSCRIPT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 1999

Grant D. Jones
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28036-1719, USA

Abstract

I conclude that Hanns Prem's article in this issue is correct in the assessment that the Canek Manuscript is a forgery. This evaluation resulted from extensive communication with Prem and from additional research suggesting that the author of the Canek Manuscript used a 1917 publication by Philip Ainsworth Means and the writings of Sylvanus G. Morley as aids in constructing the text of the document. The forger's references to the Itza capital as Tayasal and to the Tayasal peninsula follow modern, not seventeenth-century, conventions, an error that reinforces Prem's conclusions. The discovery of a family of forgeries, of which the Canek Manuscript is a particularly convincing one, should make future researchers wary of single documents that differ significantly from others of the Colonial era.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)