Unlike their Mesoamerican counterparts, the inhabitants of Teotihuacan (50–750 C.E.) left no clear record identifying those responsible for developing the sophisticated urban plan of their great city-state; the presumed rulers who commandeered the power and authority to assemble the work force required to carry out the massive construction and artistic programs at Teotihuacan remain unnamed. Although recent excavations at the Pyramid of the Moon reveal high-status burials, there are as yet no clear portraits nor excavated remains that clearly locate specific rulers. Questions about the sociopolitical makeup of Teotihuacan and the identity of their leaders have long preoccupied Pre-Columbianists, yet much of what is known about these aspects of the Teotihuacan civilization remains a mystery. Annabeth Headrick’s ambitious inquiry endeavors to answer these questions, and by examining archaeological evidence, the visual record, and by applying a decidedly cross-cultural approach, she hypothesizes that there were three groups vying for power: rulers, lineages, and military orders.

Building on the scholarship of the influential Mayanist Linda Schele, Headrick attempts to make visible those rulers who have heretofore been hidden from scholars’ view. A critical step in this “Invisible Kings” chapter is the identification of the visual symbols of rulership in other Mesoamerican civilizations, such as trees as symbolic axis mundi that are recognized as emblems of rulership. Identifying the importance of these in Olmec (1200–400 B.C.E.) and Classic Maya (150–650 C.E.) sculptures, Headrick then finds examples in Teotihuacan art. For example, Headrick shows that similar mountain-tree complexes appear in an Olmec greenstone tablet and in murals from Teotihuacan’s Tepantitla Barrio; however, the identification of the latter has been at the center of some controversy (fig. 1.14; fig. 2.7; fig. 3.2). Initially identified as Tlaloc, the Nahuatl name for the Mesoamerican Storm God, then as the Great Goddess, Headrick proposes the Tepantitla deity who appears directly above a mountain and whose headdress sprouts a large tree be renamed the “mountain-tree” (fig. 3.2). Headrick’s argument is that since the mountain-tree complex is associated with rulership among the Olmec and Maya, this image from Tepantitla is likewise associated with rulership. Furthermore, Headrick identifies the fanged noseplaque (often associated with the Storm God) and the avian headdress—both seen on the Tepantitla mountain-tree—as diagnostic attributes of the office of the ruler at Teotihuacan. Earlier scholars have identified these two features as diagnostic elements of the so-called Great Goddess. Similarly, figures in the Portico 2 mural from the White Patio of Atetelco wear fanged noseplaques and avian headdresses, thus leading the author to surmise that they represent rulers (fig. 2.8; fig. 1.13). While this profile figure carries a staff that indeed matches the drawing of stela 1 from the Zapotec site of Monte Albán in Oaxaca (fig. 2.9), I hesitate to accept the White Patio figures as rulers due in part to the repetition of the image and due to the images of canine and bird warriors on either side; perhaps the Portico 2 human figures form another military order, as Headrick convincingly demonstrates for the zoomorphic warriors that appear on the flanking walls.

The author’s quest to locate rulers takes her to other artworks previously identified as the Great Goddess, including several monumental sculptures. Headrick is correct to point out the gender ambiguity of some of these figures, such as the unfinished sculpture, the Colossus of Coatlinchan (fig. 2.18). It does not therefore follow that a representation of an ambiguous gender might be female; rather, the gender of such a figure is ambiguous. Though Headrick should be commended for entertaining the possibility that Teotihuacan may have had a female ruler, a more complex discussion of gender in Mesoamerica that is not limited to modern, Western notions of male and female would have been welcomed. For example, a more nuanced analysis of the gender attribution of the spiders and butterflies on the twisted branches of the Tepantitla mountain-tree perhaps would have avoided a conclusion that essentializes Mesoamerican women as weavers and childbearers (141).

In her discussion of the role of lineage as one of the three elements that defined the sociopolitical structure of Teotihuacan, Headrick suggests that ancestor worship of mortuary bundles was critical. She supports her theory by turning to the practices of other Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Mixtec, for whom mortuary bundles had political significance. While no actual mortuary bundles have been found at Teotihuacan, the suggestion made by Carlos Múnera Bermúdez (55) that ceramic effigies from Teotihuacan represent mortuary bundles based on their likeness to those found elsewhere in Mesoamerican seems reasonable. In addition, Headrick proposes, citing Múnera Bermudez, that the large forms in the Temple of the Agriculture mural also represent mortuary bundles (57–58, fig. 3.12). Headrick suggests that stone masks (only three of which were archaeologically excavated) were likely tied to mortuary bundles (54–55). She then conjectures that the bundles, should they have existed, may originally have been stored in the famous cave under the Pyramid of the Sun, or in temples that line the Avenue of the Dead, so named because the Aztec believed that the site’s rulers were buried along it.

One of the strongest arguments presented in the book is the analysis of the talud-tablero architectural motif that is a hallmark of Teotihuacan style. Headrick suggests that the pervasive talud-tablero was a constant message about war and the sacrifices—and rewards—for warriors. While Headrick argues the point regarding the role of butterfly motifs (thought to have bellicose associations) and state propaganda convincingly, she turns to Islam as a model for this chapter entitled “Teotihuacan Jihad.” Jihad is a complex ideology that has been the focus of academic attention in the West only in the last two decades, and its complexities are not easily understood. Headrick selectively uses as a model what is known as the lesser jihad—the struggle in the way of God, often interpreted as the struggle against unbelievers—neglecting discussion of the greater jihad, the struggle with one’s baser desires and inclinations. It is problematic to take an ideology so intimately tied to another religion and apply its elements selectively. Using a foreign religion as a model for Teotihuacan’s military ideologies raises methodological concerns and risks sensationalism, particularly in a post-9/11 world.

In another bold move, the author also looks to the dynasties of ancient China in an effort to explain lineage shifts and changes, and to offer parallels for the function of animals in shamanic rites in chapters entitled “Ancestral Foundations” and “Animals, Cannibals, and the Military.” For some scholars, these comparisons may strike a raw nerve, as certain diffusionists propose that members of China’s Shang Dynasty (ca. 1600–1050 B.C.E.) played an instrumental role in influencing the Olmec civilization after yet undocumented transpacific voyages to Mesoamerica. While Headrick does not propose a Chinese origin for the Olmec, it is risky to use ancient Chinese civilizations as a model for ancient Mesoamerican ones. In fact, some might complain about the degree to which she turns to cross-cultural examples, especially given that the publishers advertise the book as one intended for “a wide scholarly and popular audience”; while Pre-Columbian scholars understand the spatial and temporal distances between the Teotihuacan of Central Mexico and the Mixtec of Oaxaca, the general reader may not. The one place where I felt a foreign perspective was needed was in the discussion of the appearance of talud-tablero architecture outside of Teotihuacan, which Headrick says did not carry the same martial message as at that urban city-state. If talud-tablero architecture carried such great propagandistic military significance at Teotihuacan, what meaning did it have beyond the city?

In the chapter “Fiesta Teotihuacan Style,” Headrick postulates about the rituals that took place at the two structures in front of the Pyramid of the Moon, and her suggestion that the calendar and the creation of the world were celebrated here is enticing. A welcome addition to this section would have been an analysis of the role of the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, vis-à-vis the Plaza of the Moon buildings, since the structure at the southern end of the Avenue of the Dead is also recognized to commemorate the calendar and the creation of time (cf., Alfredo López Austin, Leonardo López Luján, and Saburo Sugiyama, “The Temple of Quetzalcoatl at Teotihuacan: Its Possible Ideological Significance,” Ancient Mesoamerica 2, no. 1 [March 1991]: 93–105).

Both the scholar and the non-scholar will be frustrated by the lamentable quality of the images; aside from a handful of black-and-white photographs, all of the images are drawings based on previously published illustrations. Undoubtedly the result of economic concerns that may have been beyond the author’s control, this is nonetheless a major limitation, particularly for an art history text; a drawing of a drawing is at least two steps removed from the original source. Exacerbating this is the fact that scale is very rarely indicated, and medium and dates only sometimes. This becomes even more problematic given the high degree of cross-cultural comparisons. Nonetheless, Teotihuacan Trinity is a daring attempt to explain the sociopolitical structure of one of the greatest city-states the world has known. And while Headrick offers provocative explanations that pose more questions than they answer, this is undoubtedly a book to which future scholars will refer—either to debunk her theories or to build upon them.