Meso Exam 2

Richard Blanton

Influential scholar

Founded and worked on the valley wide survey of Monte Alban

Kent Flannery

A graduate student from the Richard MacNeish project

Considered one of the fathers of archaeology

Excavated Guilá Naquitz

Started the project at San Jose Mogote

Alfonso Caso  (1896 - 1970)

Born and died in mexico city

Believed and promoted the idea that the study of ancient mexico civilization was an important way to understand mexican cultural roots

1919 - got his law degree

Taught at UNAM

Dedicated himself to the study of prehistoric mexico

Early proponent of interdisciplinary studies

Discovery of Tomb 7

Produced thematic books on ceramic sequences of mesoamerican populations (still used today)

Set up the basis framework through which archaeologcal sites are managed and conserved within mexico

Linda Manzanilla (1951 - )

Professor at UNAM

• Famous for two things

  • Directing excavations at loventia 

  • Mentored a lot of famous archaeologists at UNAM

George Cowgill (1929 - 2018)

Worked with Rene Millon

Led the Teo mapping project

Surveyed the entire city

Recording all ruins and visible artifacts

Made the first accurate map of Teo

Finished in the 80s - started when everything was farmers’ fields

This map is the only record of Teo left - the record and artifacts from the sites are all in ASU

Rene Millon

professor emeritus of anthropology at Rochester

mapped and excavated Teo

Sylvanus Morley (1883 - 1948)

American archaeologist

Studied Precolumbian civilization

Led excavations for the Carnegie

One of the leading mayanist of his day

Made a lot of theoretical advancements

Was a spy in World War 1

Used his archaeology as a cover to spy in Mesoamerica for Mexico and America

He watched for anti american stuff and german behaviors

South America was also a major producer of rubber (needed at the time) - he was looking for rubber and where it was going

Joyce Marcus

Latin American archaeologist

Curator of Latin American Archaeology, University of Michigan

Written a lot of books

Focused on Zapotec, Maya, and coastal Andean civilizations of Central and South America

Stephens and Catherwood (1799 - 1854)

Illustrator and travel book writers

Wrote several books about traveling in lowland mesoamerica and discovering ruins 

very detailed drawings

sparked interest in mayan region

Alfred Tozzer (1877 – 1954)

American anthropologist and archeologist

know for studying Mayan region

Deciphered Mayan grammar

Annotated a translation of Bishop Diego de Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán

Michael Coe (1929 - 2019)

Mayanist

Involved in the decoding story of mayan writing

Wrote the book unlocking the maya code

Tatiana Proskouriakoff

Architect, and skilled drafts person

Demonstrated the historical nature of Maya inscriptions

Went to the Mayan cite as an artist, created re-constructions within her art of a lot of these sites and the remains there

• Over the course of this work- she began to notice certain glyphs reoccured within an order, and that order generally drafted the life span of a person. 

  • After that, was able to separate those of notes: Birth, Death, and Coronation (the throne). Taking a prisoner, etc. 

Able to figure out which depictions related to life events and how they all came together. 

Yuri Valentino Knorozov

Russian Mayanist

Demonstrated phoneticism using the Landa alphabet. 

Soviet officer, in the first group of people to enter berlin in was time, entered the library there, walking around (information officer)- and noticed books that had some depictions of the codices that were in Europe-became fascinated- and took it. 

• Discovered: Fundamentally misunderstood previously, and with aid of linguistic que’s and Landas alphabet- being able to find phonetic proof within the writing

  • Aka: the glyph represented consonants and vowels in the glyph. 

• Many misunderstood since there was a belief there was no written history in mayan texts. Most believed they were simply records of time keeping. 

• Went hand in hand with idea of Maya being peaceful peace keepers in the jungle 

Sir. J. Eric Thompson

Doubted historical nature of maya texts, enemy of knorosov 

Famous Mayanist. WW1 Vet. WW2 spy for england and the US. 

He cataloged almost every single mayan glyph. In multi volume sets. 

However, was fundamentally missing the phonetic element to it. 

Dennis Puleston

American archaeologist

surveyed and mapped city boundaries of Tikal

started the sustaining area project

studied Chultuns and identified variation in them based on use

Bishop Diego de Landa

• Clergy control over the Yucatan area and most of the Mayan lands 

  • 1520’s: Completed a book that contained the alphabet of Mayan Glyphs with corresponding spanish letters.

• was ‘notorious’ for doing whatever he could do convert people to christianity

• Burned all the mayan books

State and characteristics (10)

A form of government with internally specialized and hierarchically organized decisions-making apparatus.

The structures of complex societies whereby elites acquired sufficient authority and power to encourage the production of an agricultural surplus and control its allocation

• Cities/Urbanization

• Three or more administrative levels

• Internally specialized= full-time craft workers & administrators

• State organization based on territorial residence rather than kin connections - stratified societies

• State Religion

• Tombs

• Palaces

• Concentration of surplus

• Monumental public works

• Large-scale long-distance exchange

Empire

• Multiregional 

• Challenges 

  • Transportation, communication

  • Multilanguage 

  • Multiethnic 

Civilization

a complex sociopolitical form defined by the institution of the state and the existence of a distinctive Great Tradition

V. Gordon Childe

Australian archaeologist

was a Marxist

known for the concepts of the Neolithic Revolution and the Urban Revolution

Urbanization

• Cities are intimately connected to their hinterlands (rural/urgan)

• Cities show strong differentiation of space ( Public/Private, Elite/Commoner, Ritual/Secular)

• Full time craft specialists—administrators and farmers also become full time specialists. (specialists channel self-interest into craft guilds and residential barrios)

• Kin connections are deemphasized by empires/states. State societies are stratified based on class.

Full-time craft specialization

As societies become more complex, they are able to support specialists - non-farmers

Employed in a non-domestic mode of production

Farming them becomes more specialized as well

• Artisans - depends on what they make 

• Besides the household garden - does not farm

Monumental architecture

Major buildings for a settlement

• Constructed by lots of people

  • Usually through the donation of labor - honor thing

• A piece at a time

Prestige Vs Ranked Vs Stratified

Prestige - Claim to rule, etc, Expressed as having people indebted to you, involves gift-giving

Ranked - tied to deeds done in a lifetime, cause change

Stratified - born into it, elite markers

Monte Alban I-IV

500 BCE - 1520s

Phase 1 - 5,000 people, pulling from nearby settlements, danzontes and monumental architecture (500 BCE- 200 BCE)

Phase 2 - period of expansion and external connections (200 BCE - 300 CE)

Phase 3 - 30,000 to 100,000 people, elaborate construction at the site, contraction at borders of the valley, beginnings of collapse, and competition with other large settlements (300 CE - ~750 CE)

Phase 4 - poorly defined, shell of its former self (750 CE - 1520s)

Piedmont strategy (!)

In order to feed everyone, farmlands were moved further away from the site towards better lands in the valley, they also terraced the hillsides and mountainsides to grow food

Danzantes

Only other place in Oaxaca (besides Monte Albam) to have Danzantes is San Jose Mogote

Started out as stelas, probably displayed in the main plaza, eventually were incorporated into other contexts

Original interpretation - dancers - hence the name danzantes

Contain celanderical glyphs

Displays the murdered/conquered person

Building J

• Arrow head shaped building 

• Placed in the middle of the plaza - kind of randomly 

• Composed of serval small galleries that you enter and walk through 

• On top there was a temple or building

• The inside is hallow with holes on the top to let light in 

• Inside the galleries are conquest slabs

• During certain periods of the year, light will come through the openings on the top of the building and illuminate specific conquests

Tombs (Monte Alban)

170 tombs were studied, excavation, clearing and reconstruction of building

A spot to put the dead people

Anti-chamber - which can be highly elaborate or simple

• Part of the tomb where living people go to talk to dead people

• A ritual star-gate or portal

Ceramics are filled with things they might need for their journey to the underworld

Funerary urns

Usually had a state sponsored deity on it

provide the dead with whatever they need in the afterlife

Tomb 7

later reuse of an earlier tomb

Craved jaguar bones

Inscriptions that emphasize genealogy and linage

Pendant - Made of gold and turquoise

Diplomatic items - Shows an Aztec warrior shield - made of feathers

Located at Monte Alban

External relations (Monte Alban)

Connected to the Mayan regions, Aztecs as well, communicated with Teo

Incensario

Found in temples

Braziers or incense burners are often found inside

• Copal - a resin very common, can be melted, or made into an aromatic - when burnt it creates thick curling smoke 

• Smoke is a pathway to another realm 

Comal

Grindle used to make tortillas appeared when the piedmont system went into place as people couldn’t make it home for lunch

Emblem glyphs

established that a certain category of glyphs referred either to places or to the ruling families associated with those places

Conquest Slabs

Like a Danzante, depicts the murder of a rival elite or group

• Conveys the same info as a danzante, but in a more abbreviated stylized form

Residential pattern (Monte Alban)

• Richer at the top - bigger houses and bigger terras

  • Terras have gardens - kitchen gardens 

  • Extensive

    • Maize, chiles, spices, fruits and vegetables etc. 

    • Not reliable year around 

    • Medicinal plants

• Poor at the bottom 

Site layout (Monte Alban)

• Not centrally planned

  • Grew organically

  • Things were added a piece at a time 

• Center of the valley

• on top of a hill

• No central way to the top of the city 

  • Small paths through the city 

  • Prehispanic roadways

    • No steps

    • Straight through the obstacle 

• Very hard to see the functional zones of the city

• Monumental architecture is not well planned

• ball court is slapped on the side like an after thought

Basin of Mexico characteristic

• Flat floored basin, interconnected by five shallow lakes 

  • Super rich environment

  • Many fish and aquatic species

  • Many different types of grasses along the lake edge

  • As you go up in elevation, you enter a forested environment 

Lakes (Teo)

• Xaltocan lake

• Zumpango lake

• Texoco lake 

• Xochimilco lake 

• Chalco lake 

Cuicuilco

500 B.C - 100 BC

Slowly buried by lava

Southern shore of Lake Texcoco in the southeastern Valley of Mexico,

Teotihuacan

100 BCE–800 CE

In the valley of mexico

Was where modern mexico city is located

Teo Size

Covered eight square miles

Contains around 2,000 single-story apartment compounds

125,000 or more people

Apartment compounds

started in AD 300

Multi-household compounds

Over 2200 discovered

Interiors contained different apartments

Smallest held 60 people, largest held several 100 people

Apartment compounds that composed of a single room that openned into a center plaza

Apartment compounds occupied a city block

Outer walls were thick, interior were thin

Formal entrances

Genetic abnormalities found through burials within the apartment demonstrated that the apartments were passed down from generation to generation

Apartments arranged in barrios (neighborhoods)

Craft specialization (Teo)

Obsidian - 400 obsidian workshops

Mass ceramic production

Spondolous shell ornaments from the gulf coast

Avenue of the Dead

• North south avenue 

• Monument of its own right, not just a roadway 

• It is designed for pageantry and processions 

• There are stairways, sunken plazas, there are platforms, you can become surrounded by shrines

• Meets the east west avenue at the ciudadela and great compound 

Pyramid of the Sun

• North of the ciudadela

• The largest pyramid in the americas

• Was built in a single episode 

  • Mutligeneration effort 

•  For a long it was the only major monument at the center of the city 

• Painted bright red, could be seen from miles

Pyramid of the Moon

• Anchoring the north south end of the road

• Built after the sun

• It is so massive, it would have been considered a major monument in its own right however, it is outdone by the sun

  • If placed at any other archeaological site, it would have been massive 

• Constructed quickly 

Ciudadela

• Giant sunken plaza, wide open

• Estimated it could hold 10,000 people (overestimation) 

• Has a number of entrances

  • Each have a shrine

    • Some of which have pools of water in front of them 

• No gates, no walls

• Over time the propose was changed - rooms and walls were added

Great Compound

• Across from the ciudadela and the north south road 

• Layout wise - shares similarities with marketplaces - it is thought to be a massive market 

• Big central area, around the outside of it are distinct entrances

• Lots of little rooms, shrines, places for stores etc.

• Very large, could fit thousands of people

• The placement of this marketplace points to the importance of economic function of the city 

Temple of the feathered serpent

built last to a god of war - Quetzalcoatl

• Feathered serpent 

• Sky deity 

• Shown with Quetzal feathers and a serpent

Talud/tablero

Talud= sloping panel that divides inset portions called Tableros, often plastered and then painted (typically white and red).

Art style (Teo)

Very elite focused

Tombs at Teo

There were no tombs, only sacrificial victims

• Debate over if there are tombs

• Tombs are a marker of a stratified society 

  • Teo is a stratified society

    • But we don't see tombs 

  • There is not a lot of evidence for a stratified society, even though it is 

  • Elites are buried with middle-upper-class stuff

  • There aren't depictions of individuals in the art

Caves below pyramid of the sun

• Caves are sacred in mesoamerican religion 

• Associated with the creation of the sun and the moon

• Person was tasked with making a laser light show 

  • While digging tunnels for the show, they discovered a natural cave under the pyramid

  • It was a lava tube

  • Likely the reason the pyramid was built in that specific spot 

• It was expanded in anqiuty and systematically filled with ritualistic offerings and ceremonies 

• Offerings and artifacts were very well preserved - including sacrificial victims, fancy items, ritual landscapes - including a pool of mercury 

  • Had crystals and was a cosmic setting

• Cave was also used by the aztec

• In antiquity the entrance was filled over and lost through time 

• End of the tunnel, was expanded into a shamrock structure 

Household/neighborhood/state religion

•  able to venerate the gods at every level

  • Tlaloc jars/mugs

  • Composite censors / baizers 

    • Incense burners

    • Used in burials

  • Host figurines

    • Massive category in teo, occur in the maya region and at monte alban 

    • Mass produced

State Deities (Teo)

   Tlaloc Storm/war god:  seen wearing shell goggles (helps one see into another realm) brews rain in huge vats on the tops of mountains and then uses lightning and thunder to throw it down to the earth.

o   The Great Goddess (Earth Deity): Is seen with large nose ornaments and a massive headdress full of green quetzal feathers.

o   Quetzalcoatl (Sky or creator deity):  Quetzal (bird) Coatl (serpent).

o   The Old God (Creator Deity): often shown with wrinkled skin but may indicate that he is wearing a mask of flayed skin. 

o   Netted Jaguar: often shown performing very important ritualistic activities.

o   The Pulque God Mayawal?: Is depicted as the agave goddess

o   The Fat God (God of Excess): Similar to the baby gods of the Olmec, is shown wearing flayed skin.

o   The Fleyed God: Symbol of sacrifice, shown wearing flayed skin as well.

External relationships (Teo)

• Stila at Tecal shows a connection between Teotihuacan and Tecal for trading. This stila was very important and represents both cultures.

Decline of Teo

• Reasons for Collapse:

  • Climate: some think that a drought struck the area and caused changes in seasonality and subsistence patterns…however these supposedly post date the collapse.

  •  Internal Conflict: A lot of collapse literature for Teo resides within this idea. Elites do seem to have conflict towards the end of Teo and some proof of wealth disparity.

  • George Cowgill suggests that the bureaucratic apparatus is what caused the collapse of Teotihuacan.

  • Rene Mallone suggests ideological collapse

  • Linda Manzanilla thought that the growing power of the middle class threatened the upper-class which was cause for collapse. Weakened state of resources threatened the economy.

• External Factors:

  • Teotihuacan was strong enough to control other centers, but during the collapse they weakened and many centers around it became much more powerful centers.  No evidence for invasion, this more than likely was something that started happening post collapse.

  • Changing trade patterns that effect the Maya as well. May have impacted the economic engine in Teotihuacan.

Two main Maya language variants

•  Yucatan Language

• Cholan Language

Bars

Glyph for five

base 20 number system

vigesimal

Codice

• Ordinary documents people were using in the Maya area that he burned. AS well as libraries. 

Pictographic system v Ideographic system

Ideographic scripts (in which graphemes are ideograms representing concepts or ideas rather than a specific word in a language) and pictographic scripts (in which the graphemes are iconic pictures) are not thought to be able to express all that can be communicated by language

Heinrich Berlin

Coined the term Emblem glyph

established that a certain category of glyphs referred either to places or to the ruling families associated with those places

Kins

one day

Tzolkin Calendric

260 days, it is an advent/religious calendar

Each day, a name and a number

Closely tied to different deities, creatures, personal characteristics

Day names

• Imix

• Ik

• Akbal

• Kan

• Chicchan

• Cimi

• Manik

• Lamat

• Muluc

• Eb

• Ben

• Ix

• Men

• Cib

• Caban

• Etz’nab

• Cauac

• Ahau

Haab calendrics

365 day calendar - solar year

• Planner 

• Doesn’t fully align with the solar year - 5 day party (like our new years)

Long count

• Allows you to calculate the passage of time

• Allows you to calculate the amount of time from a set place

• Encoding dynastic histories, needs a way to determine when one ends and when one begins 

• Mayans thought of time as cyclical and embedded cycles

• in 52 year cycles

3114 BC

The date the universe started according to the mayan long count system

Dec 12 2012

when the 52 year round was up, and everyone thought the would would end

way that the long count is notated

kins (days), winals (20-day months), tuns (360 days), k'atuns (20 tuns), and bak'tuns (20 k'atuns)

Used pyramids as tombs

Classic period maya

Famous circular pyramid

Cuicuilco

Cartouche

Turns the glyph into a calendrical glyph

Dots

Glyph for one

Shells

Glyph for zero

Uinal

20 days

Tuns

360 days