The Art of Urbanism explores how the royal courts of powerful Mesoamerican centers represented their kingdoms in architectural, iconographic, and cosmological terms. Through an investigation of the ecological contexts and environmental opportunities of urban centers, the contributors consider how ancient Mesoamerican cities defined themselves and reflected upon their physicalâe"and metaphysicalâe"place via their built environment. Themes in the volume include the ways in which a kingdomâe(tm)s public monuments were fashioned to reflect geographic space, patron gods, and mythology, and how the Olmec, Maya, Mexica, Zapotecs, and others sought to center their world through architectural monuments and public art. This collection of papers addresses how communities leveraged their environment and built upon their cultural and historical roots as well as the ways that the performance of calendrical rituals and other public events tied individuals and communities to both urban centers and hinterlands. Twenty-three scholars from archaeology, anthropology, art history, and religious studies contribute new data and new perspectives to the understanding of ancient Mesoamericansâe(tm) own view of their spectacular urban and ritual centers.
This handsomely illustrated book offers a panoramic view of ancient Mexico, beginning more than thirty thousand years ago and ending with European occupation in the sixteenth century. Drawing on archaeological and ethnohistorical sources, the book is one of the first to offer a unified vision of Mexico's precolonial past. Typical histories of Mexico focus on the prosperity and accomplishments of Mesoamerica, located in the southern half of Mexico, due to the wealth of records about the glorious past of this region. Mesoamerica was only one of three cultural superareas of ancient Mexico, however, all interlinked by complex economic and social relationships. Tracing the large social transformations that took place from the earliest hunter-gatherer times to the Postclassic states, the authors describe the ties between the three superareas of ancient Mexico, which stretched from present-day Costa Rica to what is now the southwestern United States. According to the authors, these superareas–Mesoamerica, Aridamerica, and Oasisamerica–cannot be viewed as independent entities. Instead, they must be considered as a whole to understand the complex reality of Mexico's past and possible visions of Mexico's future.
Buried beneath modern Mexico City lie the remnants of a nearly 700-year old city that the Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes described as the most beautiful in the world. During the time of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan was located in the middle of a shining blue lake and was home to more than 200,000 people. Tenochtitlan was bigger, cleaner, and more elegantly laid out than any European city of its time. The Spanish, fearful of a religion that included human sacrifice, tried to destroy any evidence of this magnificent city. They eventually conquered Tenochtitlan, and Mexico City quickly grew in its place. Archaeologists typically discover the remains of a city and then try to learn about its culture. With Tenochtitlan, archaeologists were faced with the opposite task. Through thousands of documents, historians knew about the culture, people, and buildings of Tenochtitlan; they just needed to uncover the city. In 1790, workers paving the main plaza of Mexico City found their first clue: a three-ton statue of a goddess wearing a skirt of rattlesnakes. But it was not until the discovery of the Great Temple in 1978 that archaeologists could start a true, long-term excavation of Tenochtitlan. Archaeologists have since found more than 9,000 artifacts and evidence of numerous buildings. In this book, Leonardo Lopez Lujan, who has been excavating Tenochtitlan since 1980, and co-author Judy Levin uncover the culture and history of Tenochtitlan that the Spanish tried so hard to destroy.
This handsomely illustrated book offers a panoramic view of ancient Mexico, beginning more than thirty thousand years ago and ending with European occupation in the sixteenth century. Drawing on archaeological and ethnohistorical sources, the book is one of the first to offer a unified vision of Mexico's precolonial past. Typical histories of Mexico focus on the prosperity and accomplishments of Mesoamerica, located in the southern half of Mexico, due to the wealth of records about the glorious past of this region. Mesoamerica was only one of three cultural superareas of ancient Mexico, however, all interlinked by complex economic and social relationships. Tracing the large social transformations that took place from the earliest hunter-gatherer times to the Postclassic states, the authors describe the ties between the three superareas of ancient Mexico, which stretched from present-day Costa Rica to what is now the southwestern United States. According to the authors, these superareas–Mesoamerica, Aridamerica, and Oasisamerica–cannot be viewed as independent entities. Instead, they must be considered as a whole to understand the complex reality of Mexico's past and possible visions of Mexico's future.
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