A FOREST OF KINGS: The Untold Story...

A FOREST OF KINGS: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya by Linda Schele and David Freidel (Quill/ William Morrow: $15). The vanished culture of the Maya holds a special fascination for modern readers: The baroque, stylized carvings; the exotic place names; the fascination with a complex, recondite system of measuring time and the sheer scale of their ruined cities all contribute to the image of a civilization intriguingly unlike our own. Schele and Freidel, two pioneers in the effort to decode the Mayan glyphs, narrate the rise and fall of the opulent culture that passed its zenith before the arrival of the conquistadors, yet managed to resist complete domination until 1697. Although the color photographs of ruins and artifacts are impressive, they are eclipsed by the line drawings of the glyphs with image-by-image translations, which make the Mayan world seem simultaneously near and remote.