In 19th C. Europe it was not unusual to speak of the Americas as "continents without a history." The folly of this statement was extreme. For centuries prior to European occupation Central America was the seat of civilisations boasting a history and mythology second to none in richness and interest. The real interest of American mediaeval history must ever circle around Mexico and Peru - her Golden Empires, her sole exemplars of civilisation; and it is to the books upon the character of these two nations that we must turn for a romantic interest as curious and as absorbing as that bound up in the histories of Egypt or Assyria. The question of the alphabets of ancient America has perhaps been the most acute in modern-day pre-Columbian archaeology. But progress has being made in this branch of the subject, with major steps in decipherment occurring during the 1970s and 1980s. Today most texts can be read, though there are still some unknown glyphs. Despite the recent breakthroughs in...