This book explores Classic Maya (AD 250–900) concepts of the body and the soul and how they relate to life, death and burial. The author not only draws from archaeology and bioarchaeology but also from Maya epigraphy, iconography, ethnohistory and ethnography.

Chapter 1, Lived Bodies, focuses on the lived Maya body and introduces ethnographic Maya soul concepts, co-essences and supernaturals, and discusses the importance of the head as evidenced through historic and iconographic sources. Cranial shaping, tooth modification, diet, sex, gender and aging, and disease are also addressed. Because the treatment of the body in both life and death is perceived as a lens into Classic Maya conceptions of body and soul, in Chapter 2, Dead Bodies, the author looks into body treatments such as wrapping and bundling, adornment of the head, the use of red pigment on the dead body, and the symbolism of associated artifacts such as death masks and jade ornaments. The afterlife of dead bodies, with their exhumation and transformation into objects (e.g., bowls made from human crania) for ritual purposes, is touched upon as well. The rituals surrounding death, burial and the afterlife are addressed in Chapter 3, Ritual, Liminality and the Mortuary Space. Here the author investigates burial spaces and mourning rituals. He looks into Maya cosmology, the concept of axis mundi, the meaning of shells in graves and of inverted perforated vessels found over the head, human sacrifice, bloodletting, finger and tooth caches, animals in graves, and funerary benches and biers. Chapter 4, The Mortuary Landscape, focuses on terrestrial, celestial, and otherworldly spaces and places as well as on the placing of the dead corpse. It reflects on the Maya custom of burying the dead in and around residences, the disturbance of graves, ancestor worship, the political uses of the dead, and the polity-specific orientation of the corpse, especially in the western Maya kingdoms. In addition, it looks at Maya cosmology, Maya spirits, pyramids and sacred mountains, psychoducts, ball courts, caves, ritual killings, places in the otherworld, E-groups and twin pyramid-groups, shell symbolism, the Quadripartite Badge, and the role of sarcophagi at Palenque and Tonina.

The four chapters are divided into multiple subchapters that carry headings such as, “The finished self,” “Burning bones,” “Capturing life, masking death,” “Souls at birth and death,” “Images of the soul,” “Danse macabre,” “Heart of the earth,” and “Fire and the jaguar sun.” These headings do not always allude exactly to the content matter. For example, the subchapter “Body and self, heart and soul” (pp. 12–14) treats modern highland Maya perceptions of the relationship of the self, the individual, the body, and the soul (co-essences) by contrasting these with those of Classic period Maya texts. The subchapter “Body and self, souls and others” (pp. 19–23), on the other hand, puts emphasis on the relationship between the heart and the head as well as on the importance of the head as a key to individuation. It is not always clear to me why certain themes are strung together in a particular order, and there is also considerable overlap and repetition between subchapters. Fortunately, the index allows a reader to search for specific topics more systematically.

While this is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious books about Maya attitudes towards death, burial, and the afterlife that I have ever come across, it has left me pondering the validity of some of its results. Because the author conducted research on human remains in the western Maya lowlands and central Petén, he gives these two regions major attention. His data derive from the Usumacinta River kingdoms of Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan, and other smaller Usumacinta sites such as El Porvenir, Budsilha, Tecolote and El Kinel, as well as from the central Petén sites of Tikal, Yaxha, and El Zotz. Naturally, there are references to many other Preclassic and Classic Maya sites such as Altar de Sacrificios, Cuello, Calakmul and Copan, but the burial data concerning the Classic period of these sites seem not to have been incorporated thoroughly into the analysis. I cannot shake off the impression that the sample size on which the author based his assumptions is too small and too regionally restricted to allow for the kind of broad generalizations he strived for. For example, he states that “inverted vessels, usually found over the face, are invariably perforated” (p. 117). From a pan-Maya perspective, “invariably” is certainly an overstatement, because in, e.g., the Classic burials 7, 25, 27, 29, 42, 47, 51, etc., of Altar de Sacrificios and the burials A-47 and A-64 of Uaxactun, the vessels placed over the deceased's head were not perforated (Smith, 1950, Uaxactun, Guatemala; 1972, Excavations at Altar de Sacrificios). Scherer also writes that “nearly all the Classic Maya perforated mortuary dishes are tripod vessels” and that “the three vessel legs may symbolize the three hearthstones of creation, underscoring the perforation in the vessel as an axis mundi” (p. 119). This statement does not stand the test of comparison with the larger Maya region, either. Perforated (as well as unperforated) vessels of Early Classic date that were placed over the head are usually not tripods but often basal flange ring-base bowls. One example is found in Burial 115 of Altar de Sacrificios (Adams 1971, The Ceramics of Altar de Sacrificios, fig. 32g); for earlier, unperforated examples, see Cuello burials 139 and 140 (Robin 1989, Preclassic Maya Burials at Cuello). In Late Classic graves, the three legs had sometimes been removed before deposition, as, for example, in Burial 6 from Seibal (Tourtellot 1990, Excavations at Seibal, p. 93).

I also disagree with the assertion that, with the exception of Caracol, collective interment was “not widely practiced among the Classic Maya” (p. 188). As I have argued in the past (2004, Journal of Social Archaeology 4: 368–404), and as is well attested in the literature (e.g., Hammond, Pretty & Saul 1975, World Archaeology 7, pp. 57–78; Healy, Awe, and Helmuth 1998, Journal of Field Archaeology 25, pp. 261–274), not all of the tombs with multiple bodies should be considered the result of human sacrifice. Hence, to the list of collective interments I would like to add the sites of Caledonia, Chiapa de Corzo, Guaytan, Kaminaljuyu, Lubaantun, Nebaj, Tikal, and Zaculeu, to name but a few, as well as some Belizean caves, which should be considered as collective burial spaces, especially those where bones have been studied in detail and identified as the remains of funerary deposits (Wrobel, Helmke & Freiwald 2014, in The Bioarchaeology of Space and Place, pp. 77–106). Unfortunately, the author relegates the Belizean caves to the realm of the exceptional, describing them as “reflecting a unique social and political landscape in the eastern lowlands” (p. 216) whereas deposits of scattered human remains in caves of the western lowlands that “have not been systematically studied” (p. 217) are tentatively identified as places for “offerings to the temperamental supernaturals that dwell beneath the earth” (p. 218).

Although Scherer explicitly remarks on several occasions that there is much geographic and temporal variability (p. 54) as well as polity-specific mortuary patterning (p. 189), and the data presented in the book provide plenty of evidence for this, one of the core premises and conclusions of the book is that in ancient Maya society, there existed “essential commonalities that united king and commoner, community and kingdom, into domains of shared practice and belief” (p. 229). This one-size-fits-all approach turns into an argumentative trap. As a result, the author considers certain mortuary phenomena as exceptions (such as the funerary use of Belizean caves), tries to explain away variability by suggesting that other researchers erred, and entangles himself in contradictory arguments. For example, when discussing the issue of the application of red pigment on dead bodies, he writes: “Some scholars have erroneously assumed that the presence of red pigment on skeletal remains means the bone was directly painted. In most cases of purported post-interment painting, however, the evidence is ambiguous, as the pigmentation could just as easily have transferred during corpse decomposition. One of the best examples of direct bone painting was noted by Lori Wright in her study of the remains from Burial PNT-019 of Tikal” (p. 79). Not only is there some obvious contradiction here, but I also do not see why the existence of separate mortuary customs – one of painting the dead body not long after death and one of painting the bones upon reentry of the tomb or during reburial – could not have co-existed in the Maya area.

On the subject of red pigment, I would like to mention the 20 tipped-in color plates at the center of the book, which represent enlarged color versions of in-text black-and-white figures. The hematite that is mentioned but not visible in the captions of the black-and-white figures 2.34, 2.36, and 3.19 can, however, be detected on color plates 8, 9, and 13. Unfortunately, no reference to these plates is made anywhere in the text despite their much better quality and usefulness.

To end on a positive note, I think that this book contains many interesting and well-informed subchapters, new and previously unpublished archaeological and ethnographic data, and thought-provoking questions and ideas. If read with a certain amount of caution, it can be mined usefully and will undoubtedly serve as an important source concerning funerary and post-funerary rituals and Maya attitudes towards death for many years to come.