Late Classic non-Maya Meso-America (600–900)
The cultural situation in Late Classic Meso-America is the reverse of that prevailing in the Early Classic: Central Mexico now played only a minor role, while the lowland Maya reached their intellectual and artistic heights. In contrast to the old Teotihuacanos, however, the Maya were not expansionistic. It is true that Maya cultural influence has been detected along the Gulf coast and in the states of Morelos and Tlaxcala—as in the painted murals of Cacaxtla in the latter state—but it is unlikely that this was the result of a military takeover. The outcome of ... (100 of 56,443 words)
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Principal sites of Meso-American civilization.
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Olmec colossal basalt head in the Museo de la Venta, an outdoor museum near Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico.
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Vessel in the form of a shark, slip-painted ceramic, Colima, Mexico, 200 bce–500 ce; in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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Totonac axe (hacha) made of andesite, from Veracruz, Mexico, 700–900 ce; in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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Ruins of one of the main buildings of the ancient Mayan city of Chichén Itzá, south-central Yucatán state, Mex.
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Mayan vessel with mythological scene, ceramic, Guatemala, 8th century; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
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The corn god (left) and the rain god, Chac, drawing from the Madrid Codex (Codex Tro-Cortesianus), one of the Mayan sacred books; in the Museo de América, Madrid.
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Handicrafts of the Tarasco Indians on display in Tzintzuntzan, Mex.
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Siguense veynte y seis addiciones desta postilla (1560–79; “A Sequence of Twenty-six Additions to the Admonitions”) by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún. The 26 additional admonitions to the appendix of Sahagún’s doctrinal writings exhort the Aztecs to pursue Christian virtues. The writings preserve a record of the Aztec culture and Nahuatl language.
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An illustration from a reproduction of the Codex Magliabecchi depicting an Aztec priest performing a sacrificial offering of a living human heart to the war god Huitzilopochtli.