This compact 2012 paperback edition of Escultura monumental mexica (Monumental Mexica Sculpture) is considerably smaller than the hefty—over 11 inches square, 1 5/8 inches thick—hardback first edition of 2009, yet its importance is equally “monumental.” This stems in no small part from the expertise of its coauthors, Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Leonardo López Luján, two Mexican archaeologists who, over the course of over three-and-a-half decades, have helped lead the effort to recover, reconstruct, and analyze the material culture of the indigenous Mexica (Aztec) peoples of Central Mexico. When the Spaniards led by Hernán Cortés arrived at the Mexica capital in 1519, they encountered a flourishing citizenry ruled by a powerful imperialist government able to commission large, costly, and skillfully wrought stone sculptures encoding complex political and philosophic messages. Fueled by greed and a conviction that the sculptures, like the buildings housing them, represented the work of the devil, the invaders destroyed or buried most of them under the foundations of what is today Mexico City.

This lavishly illustrated volume focuses on six of the largest, expertly executed, most complex, and largely intact pre-conquest Mexica stone sculptures ever recovered from their sixteenth-century graves in Mexico City. Although all six monuments were individually published in earlier Spanish language books and magazine articles, Escultura monumental mexica brings them together with a wealth of new information both documentary and illustrative. Moreover, because the sculptures are too large and heavy to move from their museum homes in Mexico City, the 2009 English translation of the volume (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica/Fundación Conmemoraciones 2010 [Tezontle], 2012), together with the 2012 paperback Spanish edition, bring them to the attention of not only a broader national audience, but a wider international readership as well. To the same end, a smaller, revised and augmented paperback reprint of chapter 7, titled Tlaltecuhtli, was published separately in Spanish in 2010 (Mexico City: INAH/Fundación Conmemoraciones).

Most of the new material in this volume follows a brief introduction and the first two chapters, which provide the lay reader with necessary background information on the Mexica, their society and religion, and their art. From that point forward, all but one of the following chapters focuses on a single monument, each carved within fifty years of the others. Both the Coatlicue statue discussed by López Luján in chapter 3 and the Sun Stone (Calendar Stone) handled by Matos Moctezuma in chapter 4 were uncovered over two hundred years ago, in 1790. The Tizoc Stone, one of two sculptures analyzed by Matos Moctezuma in chapter 5, was found a year later. The other monuments—the Archbishop’s Stone discussed in chapter 5 and the famous Coyolxauhqui monument covered by Matos Moctezuma in chapter 6—were found in 1988 and 1978, respectively. The so-called Tlaltecuhtli sculpture, which is extensively analyzed by López Luján in chapter 7, was unearthed as recently as 2006.

In their brief introduction, the authors explain that they compiled the volume with three goals in mind: to leave a written and graphic record of some of the largest surviving Mexica monuments; to try to grasp the enigmatic meanings (esencias) of the sculptures; and to show how archaeology and history have made those understandings possible (15). Although the lay reader may be less interested in the details of each monument’s “discovery,” reception, and display, scholars will welcome the volume’s pursuit of all three goals. One of the most important contributions of this work lies in its unprecedented thoroughness in documenting the original “discovery” of each artwork as well as the history of its reception and the literature that grew up around it. Some of the historical documents discussed were previously unknown, their inclusion here the fruits of recent research. This is particularly the case for López Luján’s chapter on the Coatlicue statue, which tracks the statue’s fate and the many artistic appropriations of its image up to the beginning of the present century.

The authors’ pursuit of the second of their three goals should appeal to laypersons and experts alike. Each chapter tackles the thorny question of the object’s intended messages and meanings, which are impacted by the monument’s probable date of manufacture, original location, and use. In these matters the authors are to be commended for their unwillingness to take a stand when the information currently at hand is simply inconclusive. Each chapter also includes a brief summary of those previous studies of the monument the author considered most important (263). The works reviewed might not have been everyone’s choice, however. For example, Emily Umberger’s 1998 article “New Blood from an Old Stone” (Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl 28: 241–56), a reinterpretation of the reliefs on the Tizoc Stone, goes curiously unmentioned.

The meat of several of the chapters is the authors’ own interpretation of the monument under discussion. There are few surprises here, as the readings of these sculptures, and the occasionally questionable assumptions on which they are based, are well known to specialists from the authors’ previous publications. Thus the Coyolxauhqui relief depicts the female moon defeated by the sun god Huitzilopochtli (340), and the “Tlaltecuhtli” slab presents the earth goddess of creation and destruction (437). These explanations seem to have become canonical in Mexico. That said, the authors do a good job overall of acknowledging the interpretive controversies that have energized, and will doubtless continue to enliven, Mexica art studies for a long time to come.

New in the volume’s discussions of the six monuments are many of the numerous, high-quality black-and-white and color illustrations, which in the original edition are printed on glossy paper—in this paperback edition, on heavy stock. These include stunning full-page photographs of each monument, some taken from a variety of angles, and many photographs of details never before published. The volume also includes a number of graphic reconstructions, some of which are new and, in some cases, computer-generated with the use of AutoCAD or a photo scanner (393–97). The original pigmentations of the Tlaltecuhtli and the Coyolxauhqui, now barely visible, are shown in vivid full-page graphic color reconstructions (364, 413). Of special importance is the three-page insert with a photographic rollout of the reliefs wrapped around the sides of the circular Tizoc Stone on one side and a similar rollout of those of the Archbishop’s Stone on the other. Above each rollout are enlarged details of the place glyphs, each with its name rendered in alphabetic form below it.

The authors’ efforts toward their third goal—to highlight the contributions of archaeology and history to current understandings of the monuments—are greatly enlivened by their own involvements in the discovery and/or subsequent analysis of three of them. Matos Moctezuma, for example, describes being on a plane when he first read about the new Coyolxauhqui relief in a newspaper, and how he dismissed the report as “journalistic hype” (332). Subsequently, he was put in charge of the monument’s recovery. Political intrigue among Mexico’s leading archaeologists led to his being initially barred from working on the Archbishop’s Stone, although the ban was quickly overturned (318). For his part López Luján describes the “state of high emotion” he, Matos Moctezuma, and Alfredo López Austin felt when they first viewed the newfound Tlaltecuhtli relief (389). Personal recollections like these are neatly woven into the detailed accounts of the monuments’ recovery.

One could nitpick over the decision to include a separate bibliography for each author rather than a single bibliography for the entire volume. Also missing are an index (commonly omitted in Mexican books) and a list of illustrations. The only serious problem with the volume, however, is its lack of maps. In particular, the reader needed to see a map of the Mexica’s main ceremonial precinct overlaid with modern streets and major buildings such as the cathedral to which the authors frequently refer. It is clear that at least one map was supposed to be included in the volume, for Matos Moctezuma advises the reader to “see the map identifying the location of the six sculptures that we discuss here” (294). That map is nowhere to be found in any of the book’s editions. Moreover, the plan of the Mexica’s most sacred building, the Templo Mayor (Great Temple), on page 335 is both never discussed and inexplicably oriented with west at the top of the page. Not only will this confuse, if not mislead, the nonexpert, but only specialists will understand that the plan shows the building’s seven construction stages truncated when Cortés razed it. What the layperson will make of the plan is anyone’s guess.

Nonetheless, both lay and scholarly readers will gain much from this beautiful book. Rich with detailed histories of the six sculptures from the moment of their finding up to the present day, with erudite analyses of their imagery and possible meanings, and with a visual trove of impeccably reproduced illustrations, Escultura monumental mexica is itself a monumental achievement.