Kukulcan's Realm is a formidable book. Across 650-plus pages, 150 figures, and 76 tables, the volume pulls together an incredible quantity and wide range of archaeological, historical, and comparative data. This book details the complexities of political structure, urban planning, settlement patterns, economy, and religious organization at Mayapán, the largest urban center and last regional capital in late Maya history. It draws on decades of work—excavations conducted by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) in the 1950s, the authors' own ongoing Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia–Mayapán and Economic Foundations of Mayapán projects, doctoral dissertations, and licenciatura theses.
The book comprises nine chapters. Chapters 1 (“Archaeological Investigations of an Ancient Urban Place”) and 2 (“Politics and Monumental Legacies”) set the backdrop against which archaeological evidence is presented and understood. Chapter 1's literature review is pointed rather than exhaustive, a focused survey of scholarship that has influenced the authors' ideas about...
