On the cover of Esther Pasztory’s 1998 book we witness today’s most celebrated pre-conquest Maya sacrificer, Lady Xoc, performing the act for which she is most notable: the Maya noblewoman lets blood by threading a thorn-studded rope through her tongue. Shield Jaguar, her male consort and eighth-century lord of Yaxchilan, stands close by brandishing a torch that illuminates the sacrificial scene. In recent years the sculpted lintel with Lady Xoc and Shield Jaguar, Yaxchilan Lintel 24 has emerged as the veritable metonym for Maya, perhaps even pre-Columbian, art. For this reason alone the image makes a fitting cover for a volume entitled, Pre-Columbian Art. Yet despite the difficult subject matter, the lintel scene radiates photographic allure. Brought to the fore by dramatic lighting, the sensuous contours of Maya bodies contrast with blocks of hieroglyphic text that date and commemorate the auspicious sacrifice. Though we expect visual drama on illustrated book jackets, Yaxchilan Lintel 24 is not simply a handsome artifact. Its deep shadows betray twenty-first-century lighting technicians at work and, by extension, the caressing gaze of modern eyes. The lintel thus appears part pre-Columbian work, part modern vision. This tension-between objects from the deep past and modern desires to see...