In November 2002, noted Cleveland attorney and avid Mayan enthusiast Peter Harwood generously donated his major collection of rare and unusual books on ancient Mayan culture to the main library of Cleveland State University. This unique collection, consisting of more than 650 seminal works, along with nearly 200 unpublished scholarly papers concentrating on Mayan art, archaeology, culture, language, and writing, will dramatically increase and enhance the breadth and depth of the library’s current anthropological holdings.

The Harwood Collection is unusual in that the majority of this collection consists of rare and extremely hard-to-find titles focusing on the early history and decipherment of Mayan hieroglyphic writing. Of special interest are the 108 books which have been set aside as the focal Detail of Mayan calendar from the Dresden Codice point for a new Mayan archive which is housed within the Special Collections Room of the main library. This new Mayan archive will feature the rarest books of the Harwood Collection. Titles to be housed within this new special collection archive include John Lloyd Stephen’s Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843, first edition), Désiré Charnay’s The Ancient Cities of the New World (1888, first edition), Juan Pio Perez’s Diccionario De La Lengua Maya (1877, first edition), Zelia Nuttall’s The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans (1903, first edition), and Cyrus Thomas's The Maya Year (1894, first edition).

In addition to these rare works, the Harwood Collection also includes many lavishly illustrated and rare oversized volumes like Baird’s The Drawings of Sahagún’s Primeros Memoriales; Proskouriakoff’s An Album of Maya Architecture (1946, first edition), Vásquez’s Diccionario Maya Cordemex, Maler’s Explorations of the Upper Usumacinta and Adjacent Region and Morley’s Inscriptions of the Peten, to name just a few. Also included in the Harwood Collection are several extremely rare boxed-set facsimile editions of Maya and Aztec codices, including the Codex Dresdensis, the Codex Chimpopeca, the Codex Peresianus, and the Codex Vindobonensis.

A complete list of titles of the Harwood Mayan Book Collection is available through the library online catalog, SCHOLAR. For more information, contact Marianne Nolan, Head of Reference, via email, m.nolan@csuohio.edu, or by telephone, 216-687-2376.

Links to Related Information:

• Bibliography of the Maya
• Cleveland State University K'inal Winik Center
• Cleveland State University Library Anthropology Subject Portal
• Foundation of the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI)
• Institute of Maya Studies
• Maya Archaeology
• Maya Art Links
• Maya Art Pages
• Maya Astronomy Page
• Maya Calendar
• Maya Hieroglyphics Study Guide
  Compiled by Inga E. Calvin for FAMSI, this 57-page illustrated guide includes sections devoted to calendrics, verbs, nouns, titles, and pottery texts.
• Maya-Related Links
• Maya-Related Online Resources
• Maya Ruins Photographic Tour
• Mayan Epigraphic Database Project
• Mayan Folktales