Review:

Classic Maya Place Names, by David Stuart and Stephen Houston.
Washington, D.C.: Dumbartoan Oaks. 102pp., $15 plus postage
(If ordering from Ecological Linguistics, $15 check includes postage 
within the USA, send to P.O. Box 15156, Washington, D.C., 20003)

This is a wonderful book, by any account.  It touches briefly on the 
best-known
uses of place names, as parts of political Emblem Glyphs, and gives a 
brief
tantalizing list from author Stuart's work on names of buildings which are
found before uk'aba yotot 'is the name of the house'.  But the focus is on
material not previously published, on place names.  These include site 
names,
mythological locations, and names of areas within sites.  The chapter on
iconography is outstanding, and reveals parallels even with Abaj Takalik 
and
Izapa.  "Wow" is often the right reaction.

There is a helpful attention to recognizable contexts where place names 
are
found.  The principal ones are uti PLACE 'it happened (at) PLACE', uhti 
PLACE
(Tikal Stela 31 equivalent of uti), PLACE "impinged bone" or equivalent 
bird
with trefoil eye feature, Ah PLACE 'he of PLACE' (place of origin of 
person),
PLACE winik, SHELL-STAR PLACE (attacked or defeated PLACE), FIREHEAD PLACE
'burned (?) PLACE', hul PLACE 'arrived (at) PLACE', mukah PLACE 'was 
buried at
PLACE', Mirror-in-Hand DIRECTION 'appeared' (of Venus as Morning Star in
Dresden Codex), PLACE-nal (superfix -nal as a clue to place name).  Like 
this
reviewer, the authors have noted on Tikal Stela 31 a mutual exclusivity:
sentences either contain Verb + Placename, or else uhti + a possible 
location name.

Some interesting words discussed: WITS 'mountain' is used metaphorically 
for
man-made hills (pyramids and buildings) (whose doorways are therefore 
caves);
HA' 'water' (darkened Imix sign) is common, as in Yax-ha' 'Clearwater',
Lacam-ha' 'Widewater' and others.  A name wak-eb-nal might reveal eb-nal 
as a word for ballcourt by association with stairs (eb) or with the staircase 
sides of ballcourts.

The mythological locations discussed include K'ak'-Naab, Yax Triple-Cauac,
Na-Ho-Kaan, the Black Hole, Uuk-Ha-Nal, and Matawil.

The examples are about half of the book, and are large and clear so they 
are
easy to read.  This is a major achievement (by comparison with most
publications) containing glyphic material.  One small complaint about 
format:
because illustrations are not permitted on the first page of each chapter, a
reader often has to flip two or even four pages to find the illustration
connected to a given text. I found only one misprint in the text (p.33 
fn.10 should refer to Fig.37c not 27c).
The tone of the book is wonderfully calm, and the authors simply present 
the
facts they feel are relevant, without wild speculation.  This reviewer 
would
have liked a few more hints on possible hypotheses, labeled as unproven.  
For
example, linked with the "black hole" place name in mythological contexts 
is a
name HO-T538-NAL.  Since T538 appears to contain the ring of circles 
phonetic
"mo" as in the month Mol, it is easy to try reading this as homonal.  
Yucatec
hom means 'abyss', which could not be more appropriate to the particular
mythological context.

This book is so wonderful, we can only hope to see more publications soon 
from
these authors, in particular a fuller work on directional glyphs such as 
those
in the Rio Azul tombs, and more hypothetical readings.  Ethno-geographers
should find this a stimulation to collect more on old place names, since 
so
many are already linked to their glyphic writings.

Lloyd Anderson