Trafficking Culture outlines current research and thinking on the illicit market in antiquities. It moves along the global trafficking chain from ‘source’ to ‘market’, identifying the main roles and routines involved. Using original research, the authors explore the dynamics of this ‘grey’ market, where legal and illegal goods are mixed and conflated. It compares and contrasts this illicit trade with other ‘transnational criminal markets’, such as the illegal trades in wildlife and diamonds. The analytical frames of organized crime and white-collar crime, drawn from criminology, provide a fresh perspective on a problem that has tended to be seen as archaeological, rather than criminological. Bringing insights from both disciplines together, this book represents a productive discourse between experts in these two fields, working together for several years to produce the evidence base that is reported here. Innovative forms of regulation are the most productive way to explore crime control in this field, and this book provides a series of propositions about practical crime reduction measures for the future. It will be invaluable to academics working in the fields of archaeology, criminology, art history, museum studies, and heritage. The book will also be a vital resource for professionals in the field of cultural property protection and preservation.

The Aztec Book of Destiny summarizes traditional Mesoamerican beliefs about the spiritual nature of time and its influence on one's personality and fate. The ancient Aztec, Toltec and Maya believed that the day of birth, as defined in their sacred calendar, affects destiny; and this philosophy has guided their daily lives for more than 3000 years. This book condenses the scattered and disparate literature about these beliefs into a fun and informative narrative; but it goes far beyond what academics and popular authors have published to date. The author presents a unique perspective shaped by the wisdom of a traditional calendar-keeper he met in Mexico in 1973. The book's message is that the calendar is not simply an ancient and forgotten curiosity - it is as relevant today as in ancient times. The majority of the book projects the timeless Mesoamerican philosophy into contemporary Western society encouraging introspection and self-awareness.

Winner, Society for American Archaeology Book Award, 2017 San Antonio Conservation Society Publication Award, 2019 The prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, created some of the most spectacularly complex, colorful, extensive, and enduring rock art of the ancient world. Perhaps the greatest of these masterpieces is the White Shaman mural, an intricate painting that spans some twenty-six feet in length and thirteen feet in height on the wall of a shallow cave overlooking the Pecos River. In The White Shaman Mural, Carolyn E. Boyd takes us on a journey of discovery as she builds a convincing case that the mural tells a story of the birth of the sun and the beginning of time—making it possibly the oldest pictorial creation narrative in North America. Unlike previous scholars who have viewed Pecos rock art as random and indecipherable, Boyd demonstrates that the White Shaman mural was intentionally composed as a visual narrative, using a graphic vocabulary of images to communicate multiple levels of meaning and function. Drawing on twenty-five years of archaeological research and analysis, as well as insights from ethnohistory and art history, Boyd identifies patterns in the imagery that equate, in stunning detail, to the mythologies of Uto-Aztecan-speaking peoples, including the ancient Aztec and the present-day Huichol. This paradigm-shifting identification of core Mesoamerican beliefs in the Pecos rock art reveals that a shared ideological universe was already firmly established among foragers living in the Lower Pecos region as long as four thousand years ago.

The actual beginnings of astrology are unknown and unknowable. The science emerges already highly refined from the utter obscurity of the pre-historic world. The ends of astrology are also unknown. There is already evidence that the perfection of this science will elevate man to an intellectual and social condition far beyond the limitations of our present consciousness. -from "Astrology's Place in the Modern World" In this concise book, one of the preeminent metaphysicists of the 20th century gives us an extraordinarily informative and entertaining survey of the astrological disciplines and beliefs of the ancient Chinese, Tibetans, HIndus, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, and Arabians. Then, his discussions of astrology as science, religion, and philosophy bring this paranormal system into the contemporary world, and he explains how, in his estimation, that the heavenly bodies, acting as the "foci of intellectual energy," dramatically sway the course of civilization itself. A classic of supernatural spirituality is a must-read for those fascinated by the influence of paranormal belief in the 20th century. American mystic MANLY PALMER HALL (1901-1990) founded the Philosophical Research Society in 1934. He is also the author of The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, The Ways of the Lonely Ones, and The Secret Teachings of All Ages.