The vast majority of precolumbian museum collections contain artifacts with no archaeological contexts. Devoid of controlled scientific excavations, authenticity of the art is dubious at best. Too often, museums are left with holdings of both plundered objects and forgeries, a position no longer tenable in a climate where cultural patrimony and transparency hold sway. What then to do with erstwhile treasures, storage collections, and problematic hybrids of ancient and historic manufacture? Justin Jennings of Canada's Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and archaeologist Adam Sellen explore this dilemma with an in-depth analysis of HM 1953, a Zapotec urn and problematic pastiche vessel in ROM's collections.

Jennings begins discussion of the easily confused “binaries of real and fake” within a historiography of ROM acquisitions. Composite objects defy easy categorization, Jennings writes (p. 14). His deconstruction forms the eponymous theme of Real Fake. Yet his reductivist foray into anthropological theory proves to be an unnecessary digression.

Javier Urcid and Adam Sellen situate effigy vessels within the wider purview of Zapotec archaeology. Urcid does so within the conjoined ritual and social spheres of site planning and architecture, and as integral components of symbolically charged tableaux. Sellen, in turn, focuses on the objects themselves—their evolution and interpreted meaning—while skillfully guiding the reader through taxonomic details.

The heart of the narrative, however, is Sellen and April Hawkins's history of HM 1953. As compelling as any detective story, the authors trace the urn from an unknown site in fourth or fifth-century Oaxaca to purported late-nineteenth-century “informal excavations” in the collections frenzy of the time. There follows a missing label, and the urn's appearance and disappearance in the Oaxaca Museum at the turn of the century, when it mysteriously falls into the hands of diplomat and notorious collector Constantine Rickards. In 1917, deeply in debt, “Rickards is forced to flee … Oaxaca in a boxcar” (p. 102), whereupon his friend, American anthropologist Zelia Nuttall, brokers a sale with the Royal Ontario Museum.

These chapters complement one another, providing concise yet comprehensive cultural contexts that serve to animate ancient art in the realm of imagination. Part 1, framed by Jennings's ruminations as to what is “Really Fake” and Sellen and Hawkins's “From Grave to Museum” trail of HM 1953, pulls us deeper into the mystery, setting the stage for the scientific analysis that follows. In Part 2, we are effectively behind the scenes as experts unravel clues to this enigmatic effigy vessel. The perception is heightened by the sequential organization of the chapters, which follow each stage of analysis as it unfolds.

Conservator Laura Lipcsei begins this section with the results of her initial “Visual Examination and Material Analysis.” Her chapter reveals the impressive extent to which the trained eye can discern much of the life history of an object, especially in conjunction with various light sources and magnification. Susan Stock walks us through X-radiography's advantages and limitations. Shawn Stapleton and Heidi Sobal explain applied uses of the computed tomography (or CT) scan for three-dimensional imaging. Each technology is applied to HM 1953 in turn, and this effectively confirms the initial visual examination: an object “composed of various restored and added parts” (p. 165). Using thermoluminescence, Ángel Ramírez Luna of UNAM provides dates not so much for the whole vessel as its constituent parts—a bricoleur's creation of ancient and modern.

By the later chapters, covering X-ray fluorescence, petrographic analysis, and pigments and adhesives, I was out of my depth. This is no fault of conservators Aaron Shugar, Kay Sunahara, Robert Mason, and Rebecca Ploeger. Clear, well-organized scientific writing remained consistent throughout. As a non-scientist, I was grateful for the diagrams, high-resolution digital photography, breakout sections, and flash cards providing a primer in highly technical domains.

In Chapter 11, we learn that the team decided on full-scale de-restoration (essentially taking the urn apart) “in order to facilitate ceramic petrography sampling (Chapter 10)” and “allow for a more detailed study of the pigments and adhesives used in the urn (Chapter 12)” (p. 207). I was not sure why the editors disrupted the previous sequential ordering of analyses.

De-restoration also proved valuable in linking HM 1953 to a possible companion urn in Berlin and a third urn in Oaxaca, due to their related clay sources and chemical and petrographic compositions. Chapter 13, by Carlos Morales Merino and colleagues, demonstrates the importance of comparative studies of non-provenienced material while also returning us to Oaxaca and the early world of collections building. We are reunited with the notorious Rickards. Even Eduard Seler and Caecilie Seler-Sachs are not above suspicion in the historiography. Real Fake is as much a reference on the history of museum acquisitions as it is a textbook case of scientific analysis.

Recent scientific advances significantly expand the frontier of Mesoamerican studies, in a way not seen since Maya hieroglyphic decipherment decades ago. Jennings, Sellen, and their colleagues invite readers along on the road to discovery. We learn the scientific value of analyzing an artifact using a variety of nondestructive and invasive technologies. Yet we never learn the cost of the battery of tests, many of which were outsourced. What percentage of museum materials undergo testing, and to what extent? This question is especially germane to objects on display. Museum labels are written for the sake of expediency, Jennings states—“with few words available, we tell visitors the story that we think that they most want to hear (noting that visitor expectations for the label are also often a product of essentialism)” (p. 24). Here, I would argue, the viewer may not be essentializing as much as not understanding that, in most museums, the attributed date, place, and culture are conjecture in non-provenienced objects (especially when accompanied by the words “a gift of” or “from the collection of”). Studies like those conducted on ROM's HM 1953 can go a long way toward educating the public.

The e-book format makes the volume highly affordable, and the accompanying high-resolution imagery provides detailed references unavailable in printed textbooks. Real Fake is, consequently, useful to graduate students and armchair archaeologists alike, with value in museum studies for years to come.