ARCHAEOLOGY 191

number of sexual representations, for the most part he is concerned with an hypo- thesis attributed to Leroi-Gourhan who challenged the commonly held view that cave paintings showing hunting scenes and animals are concerned with hunting magic or increase ceremonies of some sort. They are nothing of the kind, according to this hypothesis; rather, the animals themselves are really sexual symbols: equids repre- senting the male principle and bovids the female. Since another commentator, Laming, has argued the reverse, Charriiire sums up much of his own discussion by noting: “It is necessary therefore to prove that woman is more bison than horse” (translation mine).

Remarkably enough in a book concerned with sexual symbolism, hardly any mention is made of psychoanalytic schemes. Even structuralism is barely touched on. Among the anthropologists referred to in the book, CharriGre’s own list includes “Mead, Bateson, Gregory, Malinowski” (p. 18), where, I presume, Gregory Bateson has been (symbolically?) bifurcated.

One might have expected the book to contain a fairly thorough catalogue of un- ambiguous sexual scenes. Indeed, a good many such scenes are both discussed and illustrated, including oddities such as fellating bears and autostrangulation with ejaculation. But for the most part the text is geared to topics such as the sexual symbolism of colors. We are frequently confronted with speculations in the following vein: “Did palaeolithic man have an embryonic and conventional symbolism for colors, and did he divide them, like the Chinese of the Celestial Empire, in Yin and Yang according to a well-defined sexual or social potential?” (translation mine). His conclusions are not particularly compelling.

For the most part, the treatment of the subject is uneven and unconvincing, al- though a number of interesting questions are raised. The illustrations are good, and perhaps more than enough to justify acquisi- tion of the book. But, all in all, the work strikes me as being on the order of some- thing a contemporary analyst of the New York scene might produce, one who would be concerned with t h e sexual significance of the Empire State Building while ignoring the contents of “adult” book stores on Forty- Second Street.

Codex Magliabechiano, Vol. XXIII, CL. XIII. 3 (B.R. 232). Ferdinand Anders, summary and resume. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt (published for the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze), 1970. 77 + 93 pp., 93 plates, figures. n.p. (cloth).

Reuiewed by DONALD ROBERTSON Newcomb College, Tulane University

Presented in a half-leather slipcase or box, this work consists of the facsimile of a Mexican early colonial manuscript with a written Spanish text and an important pictorial component. In an accompanying booklet, there is a commentary in German with brief summaries in English and Spanish.

The facsimile is extremely accurate in terms of modern color photographic repro- duction techniques. Ink, in the original bleeding through from the back of the page, shows clearly, and corrections to the pictorial text (e.g., p. 18) show equally clearly. Questions about the facsimile can be raised only in terms of the editorial choice of a glossy paper, when the original is painted and written on a sixteenth century rag paper, and the variation from page to page of the reproduction of the color of the original paper. This is apparently due to a technical limitation of printing, where white is one of the most difficult of colors t o reproduce. In those pages where the paper is off-white in the direction of an almost imperceptible and extremely pale cafe au lait, the color is more true than where the white moves in the direction of an equally pale bluish tint. The true color of the paper is the cream color familiar to all who have worked with sixteenth century documents. These almost carping comments, however, are made of a reproduction so rare and true that it is worthy of so close a critique.

The commentary volume, in common with other manuscripts in this series, is worthy of the reproduction in its detailed examination of the physical state of the manuscript. Water marks (listed pp. 18-24) are reproduced in black and white and discussed in terms of this document and other paper of the sixteenth century, in itself a most useful section of the com- mentary, following an account of the publication and what is known of the history of the manuscript.

192 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [ 76,1974

Equally useful is the remainder of the booklet, publishing tables of concordance with other related materials. The group of manuscripts, pictorial and written, along with sixteenth century and later publications has been listed, catalogued, and parallel sections of text and illustrative sections of each have been tabled in their parallel relationships. Such a collection of data will be most useful and will save subsequent workers hours of routine work.

The manuscript contains a text in written Spanish and a “text” in the native pictorial tradition. It consists of several sections, indicating that it probably comes from either another parallel manuscript or is a compilation from a diversity of sources. Parallel in time or later, the members of the Magliabechiano group share similarities but are so diverse that none are total and direct copies.

Reproductions from the Graz house are invariably of a high quality, and the detailed description of the physical state of the manuscript excellent. The commentary booklet of this manuscript goes beyond others in the series, in that it lays out some of the problems inherent in the manuscript. Essentially, however, the publication joins the others in the series (Codices Cospi, Vienna, Egerton, etc.) since it does not pretend to be a definitive essay on the manuscript in terms of its comment. More than others in the series, this commentary gathers together the known information, adding something to the literature, and leaving it to the future to bring out the complete commentary. For using this approach to the manuscripts, the Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt is to be admired rather than criticized, for with this pattern they are able to publish their facsimiles in fairly rapid succession. A Seler of the future, in other words, will have the good color photographic facsimiles and com- plete physical descriptions ready at hand to base his studies on.

Essential for any library dealing with the archaeology, ethnohistory, and colonial his- tory of Mesoamerica, this will also be needed by students of he-Columbian religion, calendars, and writing systems. Students of the early colonial period will also find it essential for understanding the process of acculturation in terms of its artistic style and

Spanish understanding of the Pre-Columbian civilization of Mexico.

Greek Burial Customs. DONNA C. KURT2 and JOHN BOARDMAN. Aspects of Greek and Roman Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971. 384 pp., figures, maps, plates, notes, select gazetteer of cemeteries outside Attica, index. $9.75 (cloth).

Reviewed by G. ALEXANDER MOORE, JR. University of Florida

I, a social anthropologist with an interest in Mediterranean peoples, was asked to review this volume, which turned out to be a work of classical archaeology. Intrigued, I read it. I must report, regretfully, that these two authors have not yet joined the social sciences.

However, the book’s production is first rate. I have never seen a more beautifully turned out standard size volume. Its plates, figures, and maps make it extremely enticing to peruse.

The text, in contrast, matches the illustra- tions only in a pedestrian way. The book is a catalog of burial data from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period, first for Athens and Attica, and then for the “Greek World.” In each section an interesting chapter attempts to reconstruct the funeral rites of the classical period, using what in the New World would be called ethnohistorical sources to illuminate the archaeological data.

Although pleased with these two chapters, 1 found that many broader ques- tions about the relationships between burial customs and larger social patterns remained unanswered. I wanted to know about the relationships which give any social science data scientific form and coherence above and beyond mere cataloguing. Let me name a few. First there is the relation between burial form and the broader settlement pattern. The authors go to great length to map Athenian cemeteries. But they do not correlate burial types with the emergence of thepolis, nor with the final patterning of the graves at Alexandria into a necropolis, which replicates the city in a symbolic way (a pattern which survives in the Latin world).

There is also the relationship of burial practice to the dominant political and