The Rulers of Teotihuacan Usually Portrayed Themselves in Their Own Art as


San Lorenzo and La Venta: 1200 - 400 BC
The commencement civilization in central and north America develops in about 1200 BC in the coastal regions of the southern part of the Gulf of Mexico. Known as the Olmec civilization, its early site is at San Lorenzo. From about 900 BC the capital city of the Olmecs moves further east forth the Gulf declension to La Venta, an isle site in the Tonalá River. For the side by side 500 years La Venta is the cultural centre of a large region, trading with much of primal America. The Olmec traditions of sculpture and of temple architecture, adult over eight centuries, will influence all the subsequent civilizations of the region.

The nigh characteristic sculptures of San Lorenzo and La Venta are astonishing creations. They are massive rock heads, more than two metres in pinnacle, of square-jawed and fat-lipped warriors, ordinarily wearing helmets with ear flaps. The mesomorphic and uncompromising quality of these images will remain typical of much of the religious art of Mesoamerica, particularly in the region around Mexico City. It tin can be seen in the rain-god masks of Teotihuacan (nearly 2000 years ago), in the vast standing warriors at Tula (most 1000 years agone) and in the brutally severe awe-inspiring sculpture of the Aztecs (500 years ago).

The first American monuments: from 1200 BC
In both the centres of Olmec civilization, at San Lorenzo and and then La Venta, numerous large clay platforms are raised. At their summit in that location are believed to accept been temples, or perhaps sometimes palaces, built of wood. The concept of climbing upward to a place of religious significance becomes the cardinal theme of pre-Columbian architecture. Its natural conclusion is the pyramid, with steps by which priests and pilgrims climb to the top (unlike the smooth-sided tomb pyramids of Egypt). La Venta initiates this long American tradition besides. One of its pyramids is more 30 metres high.

The Olmec temple complexes set the blueprint for societies in America over the next 2000 years. The pyramids, with their temples and palaces, dominate the surrounding dwellings as powerfully as the priestly rulers and their rituals boss the local community. Information technology is also probable that the Olmecs engage in a custom which remains feature of all the early civilizations of America - the ritual of human sacrifice, reaching its grisly meridian in the ceremonies of the Aztecs.

The Zapotecs and Monte Alban: from 400 BC
The Zapotecs are amid the first people to develop the Olmec culture in other regions. From about 400 BC at Monte Alban, to the w of the Olmec heartland, they institute a formalism middle with stone temple platforms. Monte Alban somewhen becomes the main city of this role of southern United mexican states. Pyramids, an astronomical observatory and other cult buildings and monuments (including America'southward earliest carved inscriptions) are ranged in a temple commune along the acme of a ridge. In terraces on the slopes below in that location is a town of some 30,000 people. The Zapotecs thrive on this site for more than 1000 years, finally abandoning it in about Advertising 700.

Teotihuacan and Tikal: early centuries Advertising
Around the get-go of the Christian era two regions of cardinal America begin to develop more than avant-garde civilizations, still based on a priestly cult and on temple pyramids. The dominant city in the northern highlands is Teotihuacan. It eventually covers eight square miles, with a great key avenue running for some 2 miles. At its north end is the massive Pyramid of the Moon. To one side of the avenue is the even larger Pyramid of the Sun (66 metres high). The sculptures on an early pyramid in Teotihuacan innovate Quetzalcoatl, the nearly important god of ancient Mesoamerica. His prototype is a snake's caput with a necklace of feathers (the plumed serpent).

The other archetype civilisation of Mesoamerica is that of the Maya, developing in what is at present the eastern office of Mexico and the neighbouring regions of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and western Honduras. Much of this region is jungle. The inaccessibility of the great centres of Maya culture (of which the largest is Tikal) ways that they outlast all rivals, surviving a succession of trigger-happy changes in the civilization of central Mexico. The first of these changes is the sudden collapse of Teotihuacan in well-nigh AD 650. It is not known for certain which invaders overrun this greatest city of ancient America. But the side by side people to found themselves as rulers of the valley of Mexico, in the 10th century, are the Toltecs.

The Toltecs: 10th - 12th century
At some fourth dimension after the collapse of Teotihuacan in the seventh century, migrants from the n move into the valley of Mexico. They are the Toltecs, who by the heart of the 10th century are dominating the region from a uppercase city at Tula. In an otherwise traditional complex of pyramid temples in the Mesoamerican style, Tula introduces ane new element - the vast rock statues of warriors surmounting the main pyramid. Late in the 10th century the Toltecs aggrandize their empire to the north, capturing the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá and establishing a regime sometimes described as Toltec-Maya. The Temple of the Warriors at Chichén Itzá echoes the prototype at Tula.

The Toltecs lose control of their empire during the 12th century, when both Tula and Chichén Itzá are destroyed. But the Toltecs are not immediately replaced by another ruling dynasty in central Mexico. Instead the region lapses into a prolonged period of chaos and anarchy. Not until the 14th century does a migrant tribe create a base, at what is at present Mexico City, from which they volition establish the final and the most powerful of the Indian empires of central America. They are the Aztecs.

The Aztecs and Mexico City: 14th century
The Aztecs are a tribe, according to their own legends, from Aztlan somewhere in the north of modern Mexico. From this identify, which they go out in about the twelfth century Advertisement, in that location derives the name Aztecs by which they are known to western historians. Their own name for themselves is the Mexica, which subsequently provides the European names for United mexican states City and United mexican states.

After ii centuries of migration and warfare, the Aztecs finally settle within the area now covered by Mexico Metropolis. They cull an uninhabited isle in Lake Tetzcoco. This is either in the year 1325 or, more than probably, 1345. (The deviation in date depends on how the Mesoamerican 52-yr agenda bicycle is integrated with the chronology of the Christian era). They call their settlement Tenochtitlan. Their prospects in this place, where they are surrounded by enemy tribes, seem as unpromising as those of the Venetians on their bleak lagoon islands a few centuries earlier. Similar Venice, against all the odds, Tenochtitlan becames the centre of a widespread empire and it does so much more rapidly, stretching across cardinal America within a century. But unlike Venice, this is not an empire of trade. It is based on the Aztecs' ferocious cult of state of war.

Aztec sun rituals: 15th - 16th century
The patron deity of the Aztecs is Huitzilopochtli, god of war and symbol of the sun. This is a lethal combination. Every twenty-four hours the young warrior uses the weapon of sunlight to drive from the sky the creatures of darkness - the stars and the moon. Every evening he dies and they return. For the next day's fight he needs strength. His diet is man claret. The need of the Aztecs to supply Huitzilopochtli chimes well with their ain purple ambitions. Every bit they extend their empire, they gather in more captives for the sacrifice. As the sacrifices go more numerous and more frequent, at that place is an ever-growing need for war. And reports of the blood-drenched ceremonies strike terror into the enemy hearts required for sacrifice.

A temple at the top of a great pyramid at Tenochtitlan (at present an archaeological site in Mexico City) is the location for the sacrifices. When the pyramid is enlarged in 1487, the ceremony of re-dedication involves so much bloodshed that the line of victims stretches far out of the urban center and the slaughter lasts four days. The god favours the hearts, which are torn from the bodies as his offering. Festivals and sacrifice are almost continuous in the Aztec ceremonial year. Many other gods, in addition to Huitzilopochtli, have their share of the victims.

Each Feb children are sacrificed to maize gods on the mount tops. In March prisoners fight to the death in gladiatorial contests, after which priests dress upwards in their skins. In April a maize goddess receives her share of children. In June there are sacrifices to the common salt goddess. And so it goes on. It has been calculated that the annual harvest of victims, mainly to Huitzilopochtli, rises from about 10,000 a yr to a figure closer to 50,000 shortly earlier the arrival of the Spaniards. The nigh important gods, apart from Huitzilopochtli, are the pelting god Tlaloc (who has a temple beside Huitzilopochtli's on superlative of the bang-up pyramid in Tenochtitlan) and Quetzalcoatl, god of fertility and the arts.

Quetzalcoatl: 10th - 16th century
Human being sacrifice plays relatively little part in the cult of Quetzalcoatl, merely the god himself has an extraordinary role in American history. The reason is that he merges in Aztec legend with a historical effigy from the Mesoamerican past. A Toltec king, the founder of Tula in well-nigh 950, is a priest of Quetzalcoatl and becomes known by the god'due south name. This rex, described as fair-skinned and bearded, is exiled by his enemies; simply he vows that he will render in the twelvemonth 'One Reed' of the 52-twelvemonth calendar cycle. In 1519, a '1 Reed' year, a fair-skinned stranger lands on the east declension. The Aztecs welcome him as Quetzalcoatl. He is the Castilian conquistador Cortes.