Briefly Noted
South of the border
The Incas and their Ancestors: The Archaeology of Peru
Michael E. Moseley
(London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2001) 288 pp., $27.50
America’s largest native empire, the Incas, stretched from the cold Andean highlands through coastal deserts to the steamy Amazon basin. Its gold-filled cities, mountaintop redoubts and extensive road networks have all been explored in earlier versions of this classic text first published in 1992, but this new edition reports surprising recent discoveries. Who would have guessed that the most ancient mummies in the world—some more than 8,000 years old—were uncovered on the Chilean and Peruvian coasts and not in the Egyptian desert? Or that many regions of the Inca empire, now blanketed by thick forests, were intensively farmed in pre-Columbian times?
Scribes, Warriors and Kings: The City of Copán and the Ancient Maya
William L. Fash
(London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2001) 192 pp., $24.95
The Mayan city of Copán was dubbed “the Athens of the West” by scholars when it was rediscovered in the rain forest of Honduras in the early 19th century. This eighth-century A.D. city boasted lavish public spaces with sculptures, solar calendars, ball courts, pyramid-shaped platforms and ceremonial stairways. Nonetheless, as this revised edition of the book written by Harvard anthropology professor William Fash in 1991 points out, life was far from idyllic. Recently deciphered hieroglyphics reveal that this great Mayan city was plagued by unsanitary crowding, warfare between rival families and insufficient agriculture to feed its swelling population.
The Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmec to Aztec
Mary Ellen Miller
(New York: Thames & Hudson, Inc., 200l) 240 pp., $14.95
A stunning array of pre-Columbian art is shown in this third edition of Mary Miller’s standard work, which first came out in 1986. Images of ancient pyramids, mass-produced ceramics, stone masks, elaborate Toltec stelae, feathered Aztec headdresses and genealogical manuscripts made of deerskin are presented with discussions of their historical and cultural contexts. This paperback belongs in every Central American traveler’s suitcase and art history student’s backpack.
Archaeological Mexico: A Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Cities and Sacred Sites
Andrew Coe
(Emeryville, CA: Avalon Travel Publishing, 2001) 469 pp., $21.95
More than 50 of Mexico’s pre-Columbian sites are exhaustively explored in this useful field guide filled with historical information, maps, photos and plenty of practical tips on when to go and what to pack. The author’s touring advice leaves nothing to chance; readers are told which paths lead where and when it’s advisable to take along mosquito repellent. Coe ranks the sites, giving top “four trowel” awards to Teotihuacan, the Great Temple (Valley of Mexico), El Tajin, Monte Albán, Palenque, Yaxchilan, Uxmal and Chichén Itzá.
The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame
E. Michael Whittington, ed.
(New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2001) 288 pp., $50
Thousands of years before the NBA and NFL, ball games in ancient Mesoamerica were held in magnificent courts before throngs of enthusiastic spectators. Games often concluded with elaborate rituals in which the losers were sacrificed to the gods. The Olmecs, Maya and Aztecs not only organized the world’s first team sports; they were the first to play with balls made of native American rubber. Filled with images of ancient sculpture, ceramic figurines and relief carvings depicting male and female ballplayers, The Sport of Life and Death documents ritualized sport prior to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century A.D.