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The Art of Mesoamerica
Book Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Mark Cartwright

The Art of Mesoamerica

Another wonderfully informative book from the World of Art series. This one makes a marvelous introduction to Mesoamerica as not only does it cover the fascinating and utterly distinctive art of civilizations such as the Maya, Aztecs and...
The Conquest of New Spain
Definition by Mark Cartwright

The Conquest of New Spain

The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492 to c. 1580) is an account written in 1568 of the early Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica, specifically the conquest of the Aztec civilization in Mexico from 1519 to 1521 when Díaz...
Ghosts in the Ancient World
Definition by Joshua J. Mark

Ghosts in the Ancient World

A belief in an afterlife was central to every major civilization of the ancient world and this encouraged the recognition of the reality of ghosts as the spirits of the departed who, for one reason or another, either returned from the realm...
Maya Writing
Article by Mark Cartwright

Maya Writing

The Maya hieroglyphic writing system was a sophisticated combination of pictographs directly representing objects and ideograms (glyphs) expressing more abstract concepts such as actions, ideas and syllabic sounds. Maya writing has survived...
The Aztec Calendar
Article by Mark Cartwright

The Aztec Calendar

The Aztecs of ancient Mexico measured time with a sophisticated and interconnected triple calendar system which followed the movements of the celestial bodies and provided a comprehensive list of important religious festivals and sacred dates...
The Classic Maya Collapse
Article by Mark Cartwright

The Classic Maya Collapse

The Mesoamerican Terminal Classic period (c. 800-925) saw one of the most dramatic civilization collapses in history. Within a century or so the flourishing Classic Maya civilization fell into a permanent decline when once-great cities were...
The Mask of Xiuhtecuhtli
Article by Mark Cartwright

The Mask of Xiuhtecuhtli

The striking turquoise mask now in the British Museum in London is thought to represent Xiuhtecuhtli, the Aztec god of fire, and dates to the final century of the Aztec empire, c. 1400-1521 CE. It is made from hundreds of small pieces of...
Sioux Story of The Gift of Corn
Article by Joshua J. Mark

Sioux Story of The Gift of Corn

Corn (maize) was central to the lives of Native Americans across North, Central, and South America. Maize was introduced to North America from Mesoamerica c. 700/900 CE and transformed the lives of the indigenous peoples. Every tribal nation...
The Megalithic Funerary Art of San Agustín
Article by Benjamin Oswald

The Megalithic Funerary Art of San Agustín

Beginning approximately 2000 years ago, in a rugged stretch of southwestern Colombia where the Andes split into multiple ranges and the mighty Magdalena River is born, a people created a collection of magnificent ritual and burial monuments...
Medieval Climate Anomaly in the Americas
Article by Oxford University Press

Medieval Climate Anomaly in the Americas

To climatologists, the period of seven to twelve centuries ago was known as a "Climate Anomaly" or a "Warm Period" (800-1300 CE). To archaeologists, it was a time of great change, a period when cultural patterns were put into place that lasted...
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