Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture

C

3

Huastec and Totonac

At the time of the Spanish conquest the Huastec culture was located on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, while the central coast was occupied by the Totonac, whose major city was Zempoala. Excellent stone sculptors, the Huastec were also known for carving seashells with intricate cutout designs.

C

4

Mixtec

By the 10th century Mixtec rulers from the neighboring highlands had fought and married their way into parts of the Zapotec Valley of Oaxaca. Occupying Monte Albán as a necropolis, or city of the dead, they built fortified cities such as Yagul, as well as the important religious center of Mitla. Mixtec edifices are decorated with distinctive geometric stone mosaics.

Mixtec codices (the only one of which was preserved is the Codex Zouche-Nuttall), murals, and painted pottery attest to this people's accomplishments at drawing and painting. They were the finest metalworkers of Mesoamerica, and the pottery produced in the Mixtec-Puebla style at Cholula was the most highly valued ceramic ware in 14th- and 15th-century Mexico. The Mixtec also excelled in decorating masks, sacrificial knives, and other objects with mosaic inlays of coral, shell, turquoise, and other stones, as well as obsidian. Woodcarving was also a highly developed craft, used particularly for making intricately decorated atlatls (spear-throwers) and for carving teponaztli (slit-drums, or hollow horizontal, cylindrical percussion instruments), for ceremonial use.

C

5

Aztec

The last major Mesoamerican civilization was that of the Aztec, who were also called Mexica (from which the name Mexico is derived). Between 1428 and 1521 the Aztec produced and collected as imperial tribute some of the finest remaining examples of pre-Columbian art (see Aztec Empire).

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The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, the present site of Mexico City, was one of the largest and one of the most beautiful cities in the world at the time of the Spanish conquest. Built in Lake Texcoco on natural islands and artificial islands called chinampas, Tenochtitlán was similar in concept to Venice, Italy. The streets were primarily canals, and boats were the major form of transportation. Today, the central plaza of Mexico City overlies the main Aztec ceremonial center. Recent excavations in the Aztec Templo Mayor by Mexican archaeologists have yielded the most spectacular archaeological discoveries of this century in Mexico.

The Aztec produced monumental freestanding stone sculpture. In this sculpture the Aztec were capable of abstraction, as well as a realism that reveals both the internal and external character of the deity, person, or animal portrayed. Much Aztec stone sculpture was used for architectural decoration and representations of deities; it was also employed for human sacrificial altars, cuauhxicalli (containers for human hearts and blood), calendar stones, and other major ceremonial objects.

In execution and conception the codices produced by the Aztec are of extremely high quality. Only a few survived the destruction of the Aztec libraries during the 16th century by the Spanish missionaries.

VII

Central Andean Area

Unlike those in Mesoamerica, the earliest major ruins in the Central Andean Area date from before the discovery of pottery.

A

Pre-Ceramic Period

The earliest evidence of ceremonial architecture comes from the Norte Chico region of Peru, where large step pyramids and other structures were built starting around 3000 bc. In the Chicama Valley of the northern Peruvian coast at Huaca Prieta, monumental ceremonial mounds were built about 2500 bc. Highly skilled cotton weaving has been found at this site as well as gourds carved with stylized geometric motifs. Another Pre-Ceramic site on the northern coast is Las Haldas, where pyramids and platform temples were constructed of earth about 1800 bc. El Paraido, or Chuquintanta, on the central Peruvian coast, is the region's largest excavated Pre-Ceramic site. Various residential complexes of clay and stone were built by piling rooms and terraces onto one another, as in the Pueblo towns in the southwestern United States. Another important Pre-Ceramic site is Kotosh in the northern highlands of Peru. At Kotosh, terraced temples were made of fieldstone set in earth and decorated with clay reliefs of crossed hands.

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