Reviews
Faking Ancient Mesoamerica By Nancy L. Kelker and Karen O. Bruhns (Left Coast Press, 2010; 256 pgs., $30 paper, $89 cloth; www.lcoastpress.com)
“To a museum professional ‘fake’ is the ultimate F-word,” and more than 40 percent of pre-Colombian pieces from Mesoamerica in museums and private collections are fakes, according to the authors of this informative and fast moving detective study. Systematically they describe various categories of forgery from bark-paper codices to crystal skulls to stone sculptures. Forgery style is a fascinating part of this study. Simple copying is the most common type of forgery and the easiest to detect. The work of the original artist-forger is the most difficult to identify. A master can manipulate style and technique to create original interpretations of ancient art. If the artist uses ancient materials, his works are virtually impossible to detect. While the techniques and the mediums vary, they all have some things in common. All fakes lack provenance, consequently antiquities dealers often resort to fanciful stories and half-truths to create legitimacy. There are biographies of several of the forgers, who describe their craft and how they fool connoisseurs and specialists. Many forgers take great pride in their work, and vanity is sometimes the cause of their downfall. Authors Nancy L. Kelker, a pre-Colombian art historian, and Karen Bruhns, a Mesoamerican archaeologist, have produced a scholarly, yet entertaining study of one of antiquarianism’s seamiest sides. It’s a must read for museum professionals, collectors, and art historians.
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The River and the Railroad: An Archaeological History of Reno By Mary Ringhoff and Edward J. Stoner (University of Nevada Press, 2011; 189 pgs., illus. $35 cloth; www.unpress.nevada.edu)
Reno, Nevada began in 1868 as a railroad town between the Truckee River and the transcontinental railroad. The expanding main line of the old Central Pacific has bisected the city ever since, posing more and more problems for traffic, public safety, and aesthetics in the growing city. After years of public debate, Reno decided to relocate the tracks into a large, partially covered 54-foot-wide, 30-foot-deep trench for two miles through the center of town. As a publicly funded project, archaeological investigations were required as the trench was dug, a project that lasted from 2001 to 2005. This is the story of that massive dig, carried out by the contract firm of Western Cultural Resources Management, Inc. It was perhaps the largest archaeological excavation project ever undertaken in a Western city. The archaeologists found 5,000 years of continuous habitation in 83 sites. Early pre-historic sites tell of the people who subsisted here. When the railroad came, so, too, came the town of Reno; the excavations document the growth of the city and the development of its infrastructure and its residents, including the Chinese who built the railroad, African-Americans, and Europeans of many nationalities. Big contract digs produce big, tedious reports. In this case two of the investigators, Mary Ringhoff and Edward Stoner, have also produced an energetic, informative story of the excavations and their findings. The River and the Railroad is a fascinating case study of an important episode in American history.
summer • 2011
