The Altun Ha report is the third volume in a series by David Pendergast on his excavations at the Preclassic and Classic site of Altun Ha in northeastern Belize. This volume presents the findings from test excavations during the 1964-1970 field seasons in six areas or “zones” of the site map; within each zone the excavation data are discussed by each of 31 tested structures. Organizationally, the volume is excellent; the description of each structure proceeds through excavation, construction history, dating, and post-abandonment use. It is beautifully illustrated with photographs of excavations, line drawings of pottery and other artifacts, and plans and sections of buildings and features. One can make few complaints; the data presentation is impressively thorough. Yet volume 3 has limited use without access to the earlier volumes, because it does not reproduce the overall site map. Pendergast has been chided for not providing conclusions to each volume, but he rightly feels they are premature. Such synthesis will appear in the two final volumes, which Mayanists will welcome.
The volume from the Sixth Palenque Round Table compiles papers presented at this popular conference held at the archaeological site of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. The round tables began focusing on Palenque in 1973, particularly its spectacular art and iconography. Since then they have been held at irregular intervals with international participation and broader geographical coverage. Topically, however, nearly all the papers address some aspect of the art, inscriptions, dynastic histories, astronomy, and so on, of the Classic Maya. The Sixth Round Table comprises 34 very different contributions. Some are concerned with the texts and histories of particular sites, such as Palenque and Copan; others focus on themes in art and ritual, individual glyphs and their interpretation, and the Dresden Codex.
The Palenque conference volumes are standard reference works for scholars addressing the enormous body of inscriptional data on the Maya. And because Mayanists increasingly acknowledge that they are doing “historical archaeology,” this textual information is a critical part of understanding elite Maya societal development and functioning. As a result, conferences on Maya epigraphy and dynastic histories are springing up everywhere. But the field is developing so rapidly that advances in reading and interpreting glyphs are out of date almost before they can be published, and for many non-epigraphers this area of scholarship is growing ever more esoteric and closed.
These two volumes are welcome resources for lowland Maya archaeologists, providing basic descriptive data and limited interpretation on topics of great interest in the field. At the same time, however, they are highly specialized, and not likely to be required reading for most of the HAHR audience.
