Time and the Ancestors: Aztec and Mixtec Ritual Art, is not the sort of general overview of Postclassic period central and southern Mexican artwork that the book's title might imply. Instead, it is something much more specific—it is a deep analysis of the meanings behind the artifacts included in one of the most spectacular finds in Mesoamerican archaeology, namely Tomb 7 at the site of Monte Alban, Oaxaca. Nevertheless, the authors’ search for the meanings behind these objects leads them to make iconographic and thematic connections between the tomb offerings and a wide swath of prehispanic Mexican artworks, ranging from Preclassic monuments at Chalcatzingo to Aztec stone sculpture, and the Mixtec and Borgia group codices. As such, it makes for a much more interesting and inventive analysis for specialists in the field, while at the same time, it provides for more generalist readers detailed studies of a large number of the most famous artworks of Postclassic Mexico. It is an ambitious and highly interdisciplinary study, produced by two of the foremost experts in the subject.

The introduction provides a basic overview of the book's subject matter and of the theoretical perspectives the authors bring to the material. The first section offers a useful review of the mechanics of the Mesoamerican calendar. Discussion then moves on to the authors’ engagement with postcolonial theory from cultural studies generally. This theoretical approach is well deployed and articulated; however, the authors would have benefited from referencing studies in anthropology, art history, and ethnohistory that have similarly engaged this scholarship. As the chapter stands, the authors risk casting these disciplines as having gone virtually unchanged over the last 50– 100 years.

The first section (Chapters 1–4) focuses largely on Tomb 7 at Monte Alban. The authors first discuss the archaeological context and build upon previous studies in demonstrating that the tomb, while first constructed and used during the Classic Period, was reused as a site of ancestor veneration during the Postclassic, when the bulk of the offerings and some of the human remains were deposited. It is clear that after its abandonment, Monte Alban was still viewed as a sacred place corresponding to a previous age of creation, and the tomb was a symbolically powerful context in which rituals involving sacred bundles were carried out. To further contextualize matters, the authors then provide a rich analysis of what is known about Postclassic practices involving ancestor veneration and sacred bundles, primarily from the Mixtec codices and colonial ethnohistorical accounts. The discussion then moves to a detailed iconographic study of many of the artifacts in Tomb 7, with a focus on carved bone objects and gold ornaments, which complements and builds upon previous studies by Alfonso Caso and by Geoffrey McCafferty and Sharisse McCafferty. The authors connect iconographic elements of many ritual objects deposited in the tomb with scenes in the Mixtec codices, and make an intriguing argument that the ceremonies carried out here were connected to the allied dynasties of Zaachila and Teozacoalco, involving both Zapotec and Mixtec ethnic groups. Further, because the Mixtec codices often depict temples with sacred bundles as containing fire drills as well, they argue that a number of these rituals would have been related to the New Fire ceremony, reenacting primordial creation. In an otherwise robust bibliography, a curious omission is the work of Byron Hammann, who has written extensively about the significances of “pre-sunrise” objects and ruins for Mixtecs and Nahuas during the Postclassic. Engagement with this work would have complemented and bolstered the authors’ arguments.

The second section (Chapters 5–8) is much wider ranging. Chapter 5 focuses on an important though lesser-known colonial manuscript from Oaxaca known as the Selden Roll. The authors’ analysis illustrates how this document depicts events of initial creation, and then a series of ritual acts which culminate with the establishment of the Coixtlahuaca dynasty, the latter event accompanied by a drilling of the New Fire. The authors thus argue that New Fire ceremonies were critical events that commemorated the establishment of dynasties in both the Coixtlahuaca Valley and at Zaachila/Monte Alban. An interesting parallel, not explicitly noted by the authors, is that in both cases these would have been rituals involving multiple ethnic groups—Mixtecs and Zapotecs in the latter, and Chochos, Mixtecs, and Nahuas (and possibly others), in the former. Chapter 6 provides a broader consideration of the significance of the birth of the current sun for Mesoamerican peoples, primarily through an analysis of some of the most famous pieces of Aztec stone sculpture. Included in the authors’ review are the Calendar/Sun Stone, the Tlaltecuhtli sculpture from the Templo Mayor, the Stone of Tizoc, the Teocalli of Sacred War, and various others. In the last chapter, prior to a summary conclusion, the authors more deeply explore Mesoamerican ritual beliefs related to creation and the drilling of the New Fire through a detailed analysis of the enigmatic “temple scenes” found on pages 29–46 of the Codex Borgia. The book's argument is brought together as the authors interpret these scenes as representing a series of rituals carried out over the course of the solar year, involving sacred bundles, ancestor veneration, and other rites, culminating in the New Fire ceremony, which, they argue, occurred similarly at Tomb 7 of Monte Alban.

A number of editorial issues unfortunately detract from the book. Apart from myriad typos and spelling errors, other odd things appear in the text: for example, the exact same block quote from Torquemada appears twice within a span of eight pages. A more fundamental issue is that, while the book is lavishly illustrated, none of the illustration numbers are referenced within the text. This often risks leaving readers confused when images are discussed in the text, as to whether they are in fact illustrated in the book, and if so, where. Brill Press would do well to invest more resources in copy editing.

As in virtually any book of its length and scope, there are a number of arguments and interpretations presented in Time and the Ancestors that other scholars will disagree with and have disagreed with previously. The authors avoid a caustic tone in these cases, however, simply presenting their evidence and acknowledging other interpretations in the literature. Yet these debates do not really have impact on the overarching arguments of the book. Indeed, the most significant contributions of the book might be the very deep and rigorous analyses of practices of ancestor veneration that it provides. While the topic of ancestor veneration is rather well-trodden ground in Mesoamerican studies, it is one that inexorably continues to demand further examination, as it is simply so fundamental to indigenous cosmologies and worldviews and permeates so much of what we see in Mesoamerican religious iconography. The authors provide new and unique insights. As such, Time and the Ancestors will be of interest to a great number of specialists working on prehispanic Mesoamerica, and the wide array of important art objects that the book treats will make it appealing to readers with more general interest in the subject matter.