The Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan

Leonardo Lopez Lujan is a leading Mexican archaeologist who has directed excavation of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City for decades, and this University Press of Colorado monograph, translated into English, is his scholarly analysis of the ritual deposits and offerings recovered from the principal temple of Tenochtitlan. Its strength is that it is built directly from the excavated evidence itself, giving a check on Mexica offering practice independent of the often self-interested narratives written by Spanish conquistadors after the conquest. The volume was named an Outstanding Academic Book and received the Eugene M. Kayden Humanities Award, external recognition of its standing in the field. Its limit is chronological, it documents the offerings recovered by the time of publication, and excavation at the site has continued well beyond it, so the most recent finds need a more current source.