Top Results for Mesoamerican

The Codex Mendoza is a sixteenth-century manuscript created in colonial Mexico, probably during the early 1540s and associated with Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy of New Spain. Its pictorial and Spanish-language sections describe Mexica rulers and conquests, tribute owed by subject towns, and...

The Pyramid of the Sun dominates the ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan in present-day Mexico. Constructed around 200 CE, it is the largest known structure at this UNESCO World Heritage site. Its immense size, rising over 65 meters, reflects the religious and political importance of the city’s...

The Codex Borgia is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican screenfold manuscript associated with the group of ritual books named after it. Painted on animal skin and folded accordion-style, it presents deities, calendrical signs, ceremonies, and divinatory sequences connected with the 260-day ritual calendar....

The Olmec were an ancient Mesoamerican culture centered on the southern Gulf Coast of present-day Mexico, especially the lowlands of Veracruz and Tabasco. Flourishing during the Formative period, roughly 1500 to 400 BCE, they are known archaeologically for ceremonial centers, carved jade and basalt...

The Madrid Codex, also known as the Tro-Cortesianus Codex, is one of the few surviving pre-Columbian Maya screenfold manuscripts. Written and painted on a long strip of bark paper coated with a prepared white surface, it is the longest of the surviving Maya codices. Its hieroglyphic texts and images...

Olmec Colossal Head 1 is a monumental basalt sculpture from the archaeological site of San Lorenzo in Veracruz, Mexico. Carved during the first millennium BCE, it portrays a helmeted male face and is generally interpreted as the image of an Olmec ruler, although the individual's identity is unknown....

The Pyramid of the Moon stands as a central structure within the ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan, Mexico. Constructed primarily of stone, it served as an important religious and ceremonial center. The pyramid’s alignment with the Avenue of the Dead highlights its significance in the city's...

The Pyramid of the Sun is a massive Mesoamerican monument located at Teotihuacan in Mexico. Constructed around 100 CE, it stands approximately 65 meters tall and served as the central structure within this ancient city. It was likely used for religious ceremonies and held significant importance for...

The Grolier Codex, officially renamed the Maya Codex of Mexico, is a pre-Columbian Maya screenfold manuscript generally dated to the 13th century. Its surviving pages pair painted figures with calendrical signs connected to the cycles of Venus. Long disputed because of its unusual discovery history,...

The Pyramid of the Moon is a significant Mesoamerican monument located at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Built over centuries from approximately 100 to 450 CE, it represents one of the city’s largest structures and served as a central element for ritual activities. Primarily constructed by the ancient Teotihu...

The Zapotec refers both to an Indigenous people of southern Mexico and to the pre-Columbian civilization that developed chiefly in the Valley of Oaxaca. Monte Albán became its major political and ceremonial center, while Zapotec inscriptions provide some of the earliest evidence of writing in Mesoam...

The Paris Codex, also called Codex Peresianus, is one of the few surviving screenfold books attributed to the pre-Columbian Maya. Written and painted on prepared bark paper, it contains hieroglyphic texts, calendrical material, ritual almanacs, deity figures, and a sequence often interpreted as a Ma...

The Mixtec are Indigenous peoples of southern Mexico whose historical homelands include the Mixteca region of Oaxaca and adjacent parts of Puebla and Guerrero. Before Spanish colonization, they lived in multiple city-states and kingdoms rather than a single unified empire, and their political histor...

Xochicalco is a fortified pre-Columbian archaeological site in Morelos, Mexico, that flourished from approximately 700 to 900 CE following the decline of Teotihuacan. The site served as a significant commercial, religious, and astronomical center, featuring a main ceremonial plaza, ball courts, and...

Tula, also known as Tollan, is an archaeological site in the Hidalgo state of Mexico that served as the capital of the Toltec civilization. Flourishing between roughly 900 and 1150 CE during the Early Postclassic period, the city was a major military and political center in Mesoamerica. The site is...

Monte Albán was the ancient Zapotec capital founded around 500 BCE on a mountain top in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. The city served as a major political, economic, and ceremonial center for over a millennium, reaching its peak between 300-700 CE with an estimated population of 25,000. The site fea...

The Kingdom of Texcoco was a prominent pre-Columbian Acolhua city-state located in the Valley of Mexico. It functioned as a vital member of the Aztec Triple Alliance alongside Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan, which dominated central Mexico in the 15th and 16th centuries. Texcoco was distinguished as a maj...

Dried chia seeds are the edible seeds of Salvia hispanica, a flowering plant in the mint family native to central and southern Mexico. Cultivated since pre-Columbian times by Aztec and Mesoamerican cultures, they are recognized for their ability to absorb liquid and form a characteristic gel coating...

The Purépecha Empire, also called the Tarascan state, was a pre-Columbian polity centered around Lake Pátzcuaro in present-day Michoacán, Mexico. Governed from Tzintzuntzan, it developed into a major regional power and successfully resisted attempts by the Aztec Empire to conquer its territory. Puré...

The Toltecs were a Mesoamerican people and political-cultural tradition associated most closely with Tula, in present-day Hidalgo, Mexico. Their power is usually placed in the Early Postclassic period, approximately the 10th to mid-12th centuries, and Tula's monumental architecture includes warrior...

Bearded Screech-Owl (Megascops barbarus) is a small owl of the highlands of southern Mexico and Guatemala. It is associated with pine and pine-oak forest and is named for the pale feathering around the bill that gives the face a whiskered appearance. The species is part of the screech-owl genus Mega...

The Kingdom of Tlacopan was a Tepanec city-state in the Valley of Mexico and one of the three members of the Triple Alliance established in 1428. The alliance joined Tlacopan with Tenochtitlan and Texcoco and became the political foundation of the empire commonly called the Aztec Empire. Tlacopan re...

Montezuma II, also known as Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, was the ninth ruler of Tenochtitlan and governed from 1502 until 1520. During his reign, the Mexica state expanded and encountered the Spanish expedition led by Hernán Cortés. Political conflict, warfare, disease, and the changing relationship betwee...