Description
From the first millennium B.C. until the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, artists from across the ancient Americas created small-scale architectural effigies to be placed in the tombs of important individuals. These works in stone, ceramic, wood, and metal range from highly abstracted, minimalist representations of temples and houses to elaborate complexes populated with figures, conveying a rich sense of ancient ritual and daily life. Although described as models, these effigies were created not so much as reflections or prototypes of existing structures, but rather as critical, conceptual components of funerary practice and beliefs about an afterlife.


![Nam June Paik: Becoming Robot [Hardcover] Asia Society; Chiu, Melissa and Yun, Michelle](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/61YM9OYqnL._SY466_-1-300x450.jpg)

![Casting a Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film [Paperback] Schmenner, Will and Granof, Corinne](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/81D2s-ypoAL._SY466_-1-300x450.jpg)
![George Inness and the Visionary Landscape [Hardcover] Bell, Adrienne Baxter](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/615PhhKthsL._SY342_-1.jpg)
![Swedish Wooden Toys (Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Des) [Paperback] Ogata, Amy F. and Weber, Susan](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/61pbgkyHjxL._SY385_-1-300x385.jpg)

![Angels and Wild Things: The Archetypal Poetics of Maurice Sendak [Paperback] Cech, John](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/91YTCMrs8jL._SY385_.jpg)
![Stuart Walker: Modernist Master Revealed (A Retrospective Exhibition) [Paperback] Payne, Aaron; Stuart Walker](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/91lyPzkoVL._SY342_-1-300x342.jpg)

![Book of Theatre Products [Paperback] Theatre Products](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/41AbgX-jm9L._SY342_-1.jpg)
![Georgia's Legacy: History Charted Through the Arts [Paperback] Doezema, Marianne; Smith, Jane Webb; Schneiderman, Richard S. and Spalding, Phinizy](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/81WAIZNWVoL._SY466_-1-300x450.jpg)
![Art at Wanas [Hardcover] Gregory Volk; Marika Wachtmeister; Ralph Edenheim; Sune Nordgren; Rebecka Millhagen; Hans Cogne and Anders Norrsell](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/114G8MHGVKL-1.jpg)
![The Jewelry and Metalwork of Marie Zimmermann [Hardcover] Deborah Dependahl Waters; Kimberley Ahara; Bruce Barnes and Joseph Cunningham](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/51-271x8apL._SY425_-1-300x425.jpg)


![Parmigianino: the Alchemy of Beauty -- Drawings and Prints [Paperback] Main, Sally & Teresa Parker Farris](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/91sRp3bUAL._SY425_-1-300x425.jpg)
![Transcending Turmoil: Painting at the Close of China's Empire, 1796-1911 [Paperback] Brown, Claudia and Chou, Ju-Hsi](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/91xPxi8zbcL._SY425_-1.jpg)
![Scales of Sustainability Las Escalas De La Sostenibidad (Quaderns d'Arquitectura y Urbanisme, 225) [Paperback] Paul Virilio](https://artwheelshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/31IZrr-zjpL-1.jpg)