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Originally Posted by stekemest
Dear Forumites,
Can anyone give me good recommendations for books about pre-columbian antiquities? Is there something analogous to "Indian & Eskimo Artifacts of North America"?
Thank you very much
Peter
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Probably not. If you are interested in this subject, you should collect museum catalogs, exhibition guides, and archaeological guides in this area; there are lots. When Sotheby's or Christie's auctions off Precolumbian art, they do a pretty ok job of describing these artifacts, so if you collect some back numbers you can get decent info there.
The main problem is that the export and sale of Precolumbian antiquities is illegal. This means that antiquities exported long enough ago to be grandfathered in legally are in limited number and only grow in value. Others are black market, and have therefore the added value of any criminal enterprise, since you pay for danger. Also, there is a growing forgery business out there, hence painted ceramics by "The Acrylic Master", who forges Maya ceramics, very well in fact. Anyway that is why there really isn't a guidebook on, for instance, Maya ceramic values - it would be out of date instantly and probably involve a criminal conspiracy to boot!
That's not to dissuade you from this interest. Precombian art is fascinating and there is a great deal to recommend. Try these for starters:
http://www.amazon.com/Courtly-Ancien...e+ancient+maya
http://www.amazon.com/Painting-Maya-...T2M8PDQ3Q4T47B
http://www.amazon.com/Fiery-Pool-Myt...rds=Fiery+pool
http://www.amazon.com/Olmec-World-Ri...he+Olmec+world
There are many more, but those are pretty good.