A study of Maya art : its subject matter and historical development
A 1913 scholarly study by Herbert Joseph Spinden, published in Cambridge, Massachusetts by the Peabody Museum, written for archaeologists and students of Maya antiquity. Its plates are line drawings of carved monuments, stucco panels and architectural elements from Maya sites such as Quirigua, Palenque and Yaxchilan, arranged in numbered figures with lettered parts. A designer could take from them the dense, interlocking geometry of serpent heads, glyph blocks and dragon bodies, which translates well into borders, pattern systems and tribal-style linework.
