Abstract
With the publication of Forest of Kings, Linda Schele and David Freidel (1990) helped realize the promise of the keen insights of Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1960, 1963, 1964, 1993) and usher in an era of epigraphy as biographical, even literary, history. The publication of Forest of Kings in 1990 followed two decades of tremendous progress in the decipherment of Classic Maya texts, driven forward by growing knowledge of dynastic sequences (Haviland 1977; Houston and Mathews 1985; Jones 1977; Mathews 1988; Mathews and Schele 1974) and revolutionary understandings of the structure of the inscriptions (e.g., Stuart 1987). The rulers of Palenque, Yaxchilán,