This beautifully illustrated volume concerns one of the most remarkable cache deposits of ancient Mesoamerica, Offering 4 from La Venta. Discovered in 1955, it features 16 standing human figures in front of six miniature stelae, clearly related to the numerous greenstone celts of La Venta. All figurines are exquisitely carved, giving the offering an immediate aura of value and preciousness, one of the central messages conveyed in this ancient and very enigmatic offering.

Offering 4 was found during a field project directed by Phillip Drucker and Robert Heizer and supported by a number of institutions in the United States, including the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, DC (Drucker et al., Excavations at La Venta, Tabasco, 1955, 1959). As it happens, Offering 4 was discovered one afternoon during excavations adjacent to the Northeast Platform of Group A at La Venta. Despite the late hour, it was imperative that the deposit be removed for safekeeping as soon as possible, since there was no security to ensure that they would remain in situ the following day. Through excavations performed by the Mexican archaeologist Eduardo Contreras and Robert Heizer, the entire deposit was removed within the next several hours. This work was documented in extensive photos, notes, and field drawings. The amount of detail gleaned from the few hours of documentation in the present volume is truly impressive, and reflects the skill of Contreras and Heizer working under extreme pressure. In 1955, three of the 16 statuettes were sent on loan to the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian. They were returned to the Museo Nacional de Antropología in 2012 and the entire original group was put on public display for the first time in Mexico as the “piece of the month” in March of the same year. This publication celebrates the reunion of the figures.

The volume, by far the most developed discussion of Offering 4, has three sections, dealing with the discovery of the cache and its history since excavation, technical aspects of the statuettes and celts, and detailed description and discussion of the 16 statuettes. Since this is an edited volume with contributions by various authors, there are minor differences among the descriptions, such as whether there were one or two statuettes of jadeite (see pp. 21, 87, 104, 112) or in what way three or more of the miniature stelae celts may have been recycled from a previously worked jade (pp. 21, 71, 86, 120).

The chapter by Rebecca González Lauck and Valérie Courtès provides a very detailed and useful discussion of the 1955 excavations in the North Platform of Group A at La Venta, including the discovery and documentation of Offering 4. The following chapter, by Jane Walsh, discusses the role of the Smithsonian Institution in the excavations at La Venta and describes technological studies of La Venta stone artifacts on loan to the Smithsonian. Martha Carmona Macías and Patricia Ochoa Castillo provide a chapter concerning museum exhibitions of Offering 4. They mention the notorious theft at the Museo Nacional de Antropología on December 25, 1985, during which thieves broke one of the three replicas, causing them to mistakenly believe that all of the pieces in the exhibition case were only copies of little value.

The second section of the book begins with Olaf Jaime-Riverón's discussion of the six celtiform jades serving as “miniature stelae” in Offering 4. He describes the lithic process of manufacturing celts in ancient Mesoamerica and follows this with detailed descriptions of all six, accompanied by excellent photographs. Josefina Bautista Martínez then provides an anthropometric cranial description of each of the 16 statuettes, with a special focus on types of cranial modification. The next chapter, by Filloy Nadal, Magaloni Kerpel, José Luis Ruvalcaba Sil, and Ricardo Sánchez Hernández, discusses the noninvasive methods, including X-ray fluorescence, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, used to determine the presence of cinnabar and hematite pigments and identify the probable sources of the serpentine and jadeite found in the cache. In the third section of the volume, Magaloni Kerpel and Filloy Nadal describe each of the 16 statuettes in great detail, alongside photos of the front, back, and sides of each piece. They also discuss the orientation of the statuettes with regard to the material from which they were fashioned and their physical appearance.

One topic that I thought deserved further discussion is the creation of the “celts,” which in form are quite distinct from the numerous serpentine and jadeite celts from La Venta. Instead, they appear to be fashioned from quartered celts. Although not cited in this volume, Maria Antonieta Cervantes (Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1969) makes an excellent case that celts 3 and 4 were cut from a piece that originally portrayed a flying, masked figure holding the so-called torch in his hand. Indeed, in their initial excavation report, Drucker et al. suggested that four were cut from a single “plaque,” although more than likely they were recarved from celts. Although the creamy white surface color of the celts is accurately described, there is no discussion of whether their present appearance is due to burning, as is suggested by the fine crackling seen on a number of examples. In this regard, a good many jadeite carvings attributed to Río Pesquero appear in shades of white from burning, including a seated statuette in the collection of Dumbarton Oaks (Taube, Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks, 2004, p. 106). Although this volume is by far the most comprehensive study of Offering 4, its excellent documentation will allow further research for many years to come.