The people of Mesoamerica spoke at least languages, not just one. Even in a single civilization, there was linguistic diversity; for instance, the Maya people spoke languages including K'iche and Tzotzil. Meanwhile, the Mexica, who were ethnically Nahua, typically spoke Nahuatl. Some of these could be grouped into language families, such as Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean, or Otomanguean languages. Different Mesoamerican cultures developed different types of writing.
For instance, groups like the Mixtec and Nahua adopted rebus writing systems, which were picture-based, much like Egyptian hieroglyphics. Most Mesoamerican languages were written with such pictographic systems, but the Maya developed a type of writing more like ours, with letters representing different sounds that combine to form words.
Mesoamerican cultures used two calendars: a day calendar, consisting of 20 months with 13 days each, and a day calendar, which included 18 months of 20 days each and five extra days at the end. The day calendar was used by farmers, while the day calendar was used to plan religious rituals.
Every 52 years, the two different calendars would start on the same day, and this would be an occasion for special rituals. For instance, the Mexica would hold a ritual known as the New Fire Ceremony, which was intended to bring on the start of another year cycle by renewing the sun; if the ritual failed, it was said that the sun and moon would die and the world would end.
Mesoamerican religions were polytheistic. Each culture had its own deities, though some did overlap between groups. For example, a feathered serpent god and a rain god exist across many cultures. The Mexica called the rain god Tlaloc, while Quetzalcoatl was the name of the feathered serpent god. However, the Maya called their rain god Chaac, while their names for the feathered serpent god included Kukulkan and Q'uq'umatz.
Images of these deities created by both cultures share many similar features. The religious beliefs of the Mesoamerican peoples were quite complex. Most cultures believed that the universe functioned on two axes; the center point where the two met was the center of the universe, the axis mundi. The horizontal plane splits into four directions, with each associated with different deities or symbols. The vertical plane is divided into three levels: the celestial, terrestrial, and underworld realms.
A ritual sport now known as the ball game was played across Mesoamerica from the time of the Olmec onward. The ball game was played on courts that were often located in the sacred precinct of a city. It was played by passing a solid rubber ball between players without using your hands; the objective of the game appears to have varied from one culture to the next. Dating the monuments remains difficult because of the movement of many from their original contexts prior to archaeological investigation.
The smallest weighs six tons, while the largest is estimated to weigh 40 to 50 tons, although it was abandoned and left unfinished close to the source of its stone. At its height, Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the world with a population of , It was a primary center of commerce and manufacturing. Located some 30 miles northeast of present-day Mexico City, Teotihuacan experienced a period of rapid growth early in the first millennium CE.
By CE, it emerged as a significant center of commerce and manufacturing, the first large city-state in the Americas. At its height between and CE, Teotihuacan covered nearly nine miles and had a population of about ,, making it one of the largest cities in the world.
One reason for its dominance was its control of the market for high-quality obsidian. This volcanic stone, made into tools and vessels , was traded for luxury items such as the green feathers of the quetzal bird, used for priestly headdresses, and the spotted fur of the jaguar, used for ceremonial garments. Ceremonial center of the city of Teotihuacan, Mexico, Teotihuacan culture, c. The Pyramid of the Sun is at the middle left.
The avenue is over a mile long. The people of Teotihuacan worshipped deities that were recognizably similar to those worshipped by later Mesoamerican people, including the Aztecs, who dominated central Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Its focal point was the pyramidal Temple of the Feathered Serpent. This seven-tiered structure exhibits the taludtablero construction that is a hallmark of the Teotihuacan architectural style.
The sloping base, or talud , of each platform supports a vertical tablero , or entablature , which is surrounded by frame and filled with sculptural decoration. The Temple of the Feathered Serpent was enlarged several times, and as was characteristic of Mesoamerican pyramids, each enlargement completely enclosed the previous structure like the layers of an onion. The flat, angular, abstract style, typical of Teotihuacan art, is in marked contrast to the curvilinear style of Olmec art.
Temple of the Feathered Serpent, the Ciudadela. Sometime in the middle of the seventh century disaster struck Teotihuacan. The ceremonial center burned and the city went into a permanent decline. Nevertheless, its influence continued as other centers throughout Mesoamerica and as far south as the highlands of Guatemala borrowed and transformed its imagery over the next several centuries.
The site was never entirely abandoned as it remained a legendary pilgrimage center. The much later Aztec people c. Mayan art includes a wide variety of objects, commissioned by rulers, that depict scenes of both elite and everyday society. The most sacred and majestic buildings of Mayan cities were built in enclosed, centrally located precincts.
The Maya held dramatic rituals within these highly sculptured and painted environments. On Stele H, Rabbit wears an elaborate headdress and ornamented kilt and sandals. He holds across his chest a double-headed serpent bar, symbol of the sky and of his absolute power. His features, although idealized, have the quality of a portrait likeness. The Mayan elite, like the Egyptian pharaohs, tended to have themselves portrayed as eternally youthful. The dense, deeply carved ornamental details that frame the face and figure stand almost clear of the main stone block and wrap around the sides of the stele.
The stele was originally painted, with remnants of red paint visible on many stelae and buildings in Copan. Stele H portraying the ruler Rabbit. Great Plaza at Copan, Honduras. Many small clay figures from the Classic Mayan period remain in existence. These free-standing objects illustrate aspects of everyday Mayan life. As a group, they are remarkably life-like, carefully descriptive, and even comic at times. They represent a wider range of human types and activities than commonly depicted on Mayan stelae.
Ball players, women weaving, older men, dwarves, supernatural beings, and amorous couples, as well as elaborately attired rulers and warriors, comprise one of the largest groups of surviving Mayan art.
Many of the hollow figurines are also whistles. They were made in ceramic workshops and painted with Maya Blue, a dye unique to Mayan and Aztec artists. Small clay figures found in burial sites were made to accompany the Mayan dead on their inevitable voyage to the Underworld.
Painted clay, 6. The Maya painted vivid narrative scenes on the surfaces of cylindrical vases. A typical vase design depicts a palace scene where an enthroned Mayan ruler sits surrounded by courtiers and attendants. The figures wear simple loincloths, turbans of wrapped cloth and feathers, and black body paint.
These painted vases may have been used as drinking and food vessels for noble Maya, but their final destination was the tomb, where they accompanied the deceased to the Underworld.
They likely were commissioned by the deceased before his death or by his survivors, and were occasionally sent from distant sites as funerary offerings.
The Maya had complex architectural programs. They built imposing pyramids, temples, palaces, and administrative structures in densely populated cities. Describe the characteristic style and functional elements of Maya architecture in the Classic and Postclassic periods. In Palenque, Mexico, a prominent city of the Classic period, the major buildings are grouped on high ground.
The central group of structures includes the Palace possibly an administrative and ceremonial center as well as a residential structure , the Temple of the Inscriptions, and two other temples. Most of the structures in the complex were commissioned by a powerful ruler, Lord Pakal, who reigned from to CE, and his two sons, who succeeded him.
Mayan culture, late 7th century. The Temple of the Inscriptions is a nine-level pyramid that rises to a height of about 75 feet. The consecutive layers probably reflect the belief, current among the Aztec and Maya at the time of the Spanish conquest, that the underworld had nine levels. Priests would climb the steep stone staircase on the exterior to reach the temple on top, which recalls the kind of pole-and-thatch houses the Maya still build in parts of the Yucatan today.
The roof of the temple was topped with a crest known as a roof comb , and its facade still retains much of its stucco sculpture. Inscriptions line the back wall of the outer chamber, giving the temple its name. Across from the Temple of Inscriptions is the Palace , a complex of several adjacent buildings and courtyards built on a wide artificial terrace.
The Palace was used by the Mayan aristocracy for bureaucratic functions, entertainment, and ritual ceremonies. Numerous sculptures and bas-relief carvings within the Palace have been conserved. Like many other buildings at the site, the Observation Tower exhibits a mansard roof. The Palace was equipped with numerous large baths and saunas which were supplied with fresh water by an intricate water system. An aqueduct constructed of great stone blocks with a six-foot-high vault diverts the Otulum River to flow underneath the main plaza.
As the focus of Maya civilization shifted northward in the Postclassic period, a northern Maya group called the Itza rose to prominence. At the spring and fall equinoxes, the setting sun casts an undulating, serpent-like shadow on the stairways, forming bodies for the serpent heads carved at the base of the balustrades.
The Great Ball Court northwest of the Castillo is the largest and best preserved court for playing the Mesoamerican ball game, an important sport with ritual associations played by Mesoamericans since BCE. The parallel platforms flanking the main playing area are each feet long.
The walls of these platforms stand 26 feet high. Rings carved with intertwined feathered serpents are set high at the top of each wall at the center. At the base of the interior walls are slanted benches with sculpted panels of teams of ball players. In one panel, one of the players has been decapitated; the wound spews streams of blood in the form of wriggling snakes. This small masonry building has detailed bas-relief carving on the inner walls, including a center figure with decorative carvings that resemble facial hair.
Built into the east wall are the Temples of the Jaguar. The Upper Temple of the Jaguar overlooks the ball court and has an entrance guarded by two large columns carved in the familiar feathered serpent motif.
At the entrance to the Lower Temple of the Jaguar is another Jaguar throne similar to the one in the inner temple of El Castillo. Ceramic figurines are a hallmark of Classic Veracruz art. The Veracruz people produced a variety of small clay figures in multiple areas around the modern state of Veracruz, Mexico.
Describe characteristics of ceramic figurines from two parts of Veracruz known for ceramic production in the Classic and Late Classic periods. The modern state of Veracruz lies along the Mexican Gulf Coast, north of the Maya lowlands and east of the highlands of central Mexico. Culturally diverse and environmentally rich, the people of Veracruz took part in dynamic interchanges between three regions that over the centuries included trade, warfare, and migration.
During the middle centuries of the first millennium, the artistically gifted Veracruzanos created inventive ceramic sculpture in diverse yet related styles. Until the early s, Classic Veracruz ceramics were few, little understood, and generally without provenance known history. Since then, the recovery of thousands of figurines and pottery pieces from sites such as Remojadas and Nopiloa some initially found by looters , has expanded our understanding and filled many museum shelves.
Of particular note are the Sonrientes Smiling Figurines, with triangular-shaped heads and outstretched arms. The Sonrientes figure from Remojadas below provides scholars with an example of the clothing worn in ancient times, such as the loincloth and headdress. The flattened forehead on this smiling figure may represent the practice of intentional cranial deformation or may simply reflect an artistic convention.
Many American cultures considered a flattened forehead desirable and used a variety of techniques to flatten the skulls of infants while they were still pliable. The figure contains both hand-modeled and mold-made elements. Another smiling figure from the Remojadas region is a hollow ceramic sculpture representing an individual celebrating with music and dance.
This bare-chested figure with open mouth and filed teeth stands energetically with legs spread and arms lifted as if caught in mid-motion. He wears a woven cap with geometric patterns, an elaborate skirt, circular earrings, a beaded necklace, and a bracelet. His face and body contain patterns evocative of body paint, including slight lines emanating from his lower eyelids and onto his cheeks. In contrast to Smiling Figures from Remojadas, the mold-made ceramic figure from Nopiloa below depicts a bearded, mustachioed male wearing a ballgame yoke around his waist to protect him from the hard, solid rubber ball used in play.
There are cylindrical ear ornaments in his ears and beneath his arm, a baton-like object perhaps related to the local incarnation of the game.
The rules and manner in which the Mesoamerican ballgame was played varied among contemporary sites and evolved through time. Surviving evidence suggests human sacrifice was a frequent outcome, but the game may also have been played for other purposes such as sport.
The people of ancient Veracruz interacted with people from other Mesoamerican cultures, and this Nopiloa figure displays motifs commonly found in Mayan art. A motif similar to the Maya mat, a symbol of rulership, appears on the flanged headdress of the ballplayer. Like Mayan figurines of this type, the body of this figure is a whistle, a musical instrument used in ritual and ceremony.
Mixtec culture had a unique and complex writing system that used characters and pictures to represent complete words and ideas instead of syllables or sounds. They made codices to document important historical events in their society. The Mixtecs were one of the most influential ethnic groups to emerge in Mesoamerica during the Post-Classic period. Never a united nation, the Mixtecs waged war and forged alliances among themselves as well as with other peoples in their vicinity.
They also produced beautiful manuscripts and metal work and influenced the international artistic style used from Central Mexico to Yucatan. This time of expansion is recorded in a large number of deerskin manuscripts called codices , only eight of which have survived. Nevertheless, these manuscripts allow us to trace Mixtec history from CE back to CE, deeper in time than any other Mesoamerican culture except the Maya. Mixtec Codex Zouche-Nuttall : Mixtec codices were made of deerskin and folded like an accordion.
Mixtec codices represent a type of writing classified as logographic , meaning the characters and pictures used represent complete words and ideas instead of syllables or sounds. In Mixtec, the relationships among pictorial elements denote the meaning of the text, whereas in other Mesoamerican writing the pictorial representations are not incorporated into the text.
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