Palaces of the Ancient New World (review)

The archaeology of ancient New World civilizations began with a focus on the monumental cores that marked those societies' past. For decades, projects excavated the massive hearts of past societies. Then, armed with more sophisticated theoretical bases and different questions about the past, attention turned away from the cores. Settlement pattern studies, non-urban work, and household and activity area analyses abounded. In the last ten years, archaeologists have returned to site centers, this time complementing scientific approaches with new and more humanistic approaches. Of particular interest are the palaces of the ancient kingdoms that housed the rulers and were the foci for their political endeavors. Archaeologists are now concentrating on identifying palaces (or corroborating previous interpretations) based on current understandings of the particular political systems in which they operated, and not driven by European examples. The current work is serving to elucidate the functions of a palace and to identify the people and activities once located within its doors.

Derived from a 1988 symposium at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC, this volume looks at the palaces of eleven regions and attempts to put them in their social context. The works touch upon many temporally and geographically distinct cultures in Mexico, Central, and South America. The Introduction by Susan Toby Evans and Joanne Pillsbury, along with the Andean introductory chapter, also by Pillsbury, outlines the challenges of palace studies, as well as describing why they are important by relating the relevant aspects of the archaeological traditions in the regions. Evans outlines three types of Aztec palaces: administrative (tecpan), pleasure, and mansion. The main focus is on the tecpans which acted as nodes in a hierarchical political network culminating in the palace of the ruler. The details are rich enough to create a disappointment that, for the most part, they cannot be tied to archaeological remains.

The two chapters centered on the ancient Maya build off of the earlier recent work on palaces. Peter D. Harrison and E. Wyllys Andrews compare the Central Acropolis of Tikal to the Copán Acropolis. The two kingdoms display markedly different palaces and these differences are shown to be directly attributable to contrasts in political history. David Webster and Takeshi Inomata look for the presence of subroyal palaces at Aguateca and Copán. While the importance of the elite structures discussed is clearly demonstrated, the use of the term "palace" for these structures does not help to distinguish it as a concept, and makes it more difficult to differentiate activities particular to royalty. Joanne Pillsbury and Banks L. Leonard's essay on Chimú palaces, including those at Chan Chan, explains well the characteristics of palaces that help portray desired political messages of power. However, the chapter does not adequately account for the complex morphology present in the palaces. Craig Morris' chapter outlines a string of linked characteristics for Inca administrative palaces, which is counterbalanced nicely by Lucy C. Salazar and Richard L. Burger's chapter on Machu Picchu as a seasonal palace.

Ben A. Nelson's chapter on West Mexico, along with William H. Isbell's on Middle Horizon Andean palaces, and Ernesto González Licón's work on the Oaxaca Valley are all introductory explorations of the palace theme. The first two are for the most part synchronic with wide geographic ranges, while the third is diachronic within the Oaxaca Valley. The three essays are important initial forays into the identification of palaces within the regions under study. Because of the multitude of examples, these essays also serve to indicate how different palatial styles can communicate the same themes of royal aggrandizement and power. The essay by Stephen D. Houston and Tom Cummins is the only multiregional work, and attempts to understand the symbolism behind the royal body with the conclusion that it embodies much of the same symbolism that royal architecture does. Sadly, the work does not concentrate on the body in architectural space, which would...