Mesoamerican Architecture as a Cultural Symbol (review)

The theme of architecture as a cultural symbol connects the fifteen essays in this volume, which range from pre-Columbia period and Olmec times up to the eve of the conquest.While scholars frequently comment on other common cultural attributes used throughout Mesoamerica, such as the calendar and numerical systems, other than generalizations about temple pyramids and ball courts there has been no large work of synthesis to look at common architectural motifs in the region across time.This book is an important first step in that process.While all the authors acknowledge their debt to George Kubler and other pioneers in the field, they each have gone significantly beyond those first steps.The authors include Kowalski, Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Joyce Marcus, David Freidel, Nicholas Dunning, and William Fash, to name but a few.The book is well designed, the essays are very engaging, and the topic important to our understanding of Mesoamerican cultural history.