|
Chacmool
A chacmool (also spelled chac-mool) is a form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its head facing 90 degrees from the front, supporting itself on its elbows and supporting a bowl or a disk upon its stomach. These figures possibly symbolised slain warriors carrying offerings to the gods; the bowl upon the chest was used to hold sacrificial offerings, including pulque, tamales, tortillas, tobacco, turkeys, feathers and incense. In an Aztec example, the receptacle is a cuauhxicalli (a stone bowl to receive sacrificed human hearts). Chacmools were often associated with sacrificial stones or thrones.Miller and Taube 1993, 2003, p. 60. Aztec chacmools bore water imagery and were associated with Tlaloc, the rain god. Their symbolism placed them on the frontier between the physical and supernatural realms, as intermediaries with the gods. The chacmool form of sculpture first appeared around the 9th century AD in the Valley of Mexico and the northern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustus Le Plongeon
Augustus Henry Julian Le Plongeon (4 May 1825 – 13 December 1908) was a British-American archeologist and photographer who studied the pre-Columbian ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization on the northern Yucatán Peninsula. While his writings contain many notions that were not well received by his contemporaries and were later disproven, Le Plongeon left a lasting legacy in his photographs documenting the ancient ruins. He was one of the earliest proponents of Mayanism. Early life and careers Le Plongeon was born on the island of Jersey on 4 May 1825.Desmond (2011) At 19, he sailed to South America and shipwrecked off the coast of Chile. While there he settled in Valparaiso and taught mathematics, drawing, and languages at a local college. In 1849 he sailed to San Francisco during the California gold rush to work as a surveyor, and also apprenticed to become a doctor of medicine. One of his accomplishments as a surveyor included drawing a plan for t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuauhxicalli
A ''cuauhxicalli'' or ''quauhxicalli'' (, meaning "eagle gourd bowl") was an altar-like stone vessel used by the Aztec to hold human hearts extracted in sacrificial ceremonies. A cuauhxicalli would often be decorated with animal motifs, commonly eagles or jaguars. Another kind of cuauhxicalli is the Chacmool-type, which is shaped as a reclining person holding a bowl on his belly. Gallery File:20041229-Ocelotl-Cuauhxicalli (Museo Nacional de Antropología) MQ.jpg, Jaguar-shaped cuauhxicalli in the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico File:Mighty carved stone eagle.jpg, Cuauhxicalli in the shape of an eagle, from the Templo Mayor The (Spanish: Main Temple) was the main temple of the Mexica people in their capital city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City. Its architectural style belongs to the late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica. The temple was called ' in ... File:Cuauhxicalli, National Anthropology Museum, Mexico City.webm, Video of a cuauhxicalli, Nation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl, Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries. Aztec culture was organized into city-states (''altepetl''), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan, city-state of the Mexica or Tenochca; Texcoco (altepetl), Texcoco; and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco (altepetl), Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahuas, Nahua polities or peoples of central Pre-Columbian Mexico, Mexico in the preh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza , es, Chichén Itzá , often with the emphasis reversed in English to ; from yua, Chiʼchʼèen Ìitshaʼ () "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people" was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal Classic period. The archeological site is located in Tinúm Municipality, Yucatán State, Mexico. Chichen Itza was a major focal point in the Northern Maya Lowlands from the Late Classic (c. AD 600–900) through the Terminal Classic (c. AD 800–900) and into the early portion of the Postclassic period (c. AD 900–1200). The site exhibits a multitude of architectural styles, reminiscent of styles seen in central Mexico and of the Puuc and Chenes styles of the Northern Maya lowlands. The presence of central Mexican styles was once thought to have been representative of direct migration or even conquest from central Mexico, but most contemporary interpretations view the presence of these non-Maya styles more as the result of cultural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon (1851–1910) was an English photographer, amateur archeologist, traveller, and author. She was one of the first people to excavate and study the ancient Maya sites of Chichen Itza and Uxmal. Early life Alice Dixon was born in London on 12 December 1851. She was the second of nine children born to Henry Dixon and Sophia Cook. Henry Dixon was a copper-plate printer who later became a successful photographer. Henry Dixon was recognized in the late nineteenth century for his contribution to the development of panchromatic photography and for his photos of London architecture taken for the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London. Alice learned the principles of photography from her father and worked as an assistant at his studio. Another member of the family who had a strong influence on Alice was her uncle, Dr. Jacob Dixon. Dr. Dixon practiced Spiritualism and Alice became involved in the Spiritualist movement in England at a young age. 1871, Ali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igneous Rock
Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main The three types of rocks, rock types, the others being Sedimentary rock, sedimentary and metamorphic rock, metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. The magma can be derived from Partial melting, partial melts of existing rocks in either a Terrestrial planet, planet's mantle (geology), mantle or crust (geology), crust. Typically, the melting is caused by one or more of three processes: an increase in temperature, a decrease in pressure, or a change in composition. Solidification into rock occurs either below the surface as intrusive rocks or on the surface as extrusive (geology), extrusive rocks. Igneous rock may form with crystallization to form granular, crystalline rocks, or without crystallization to form Volcanic glass, natural glasses. Igneous rocks occur in a wide range of geological settings: shields, platforms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Purépecha Language
Purépecha (also ''P'urhépecha'' , tsz, Phorhé or ''Phorhépecha''), often called Tarascan, which is a pejorative term coined by Spanish colonizers ( es, Tarasco), is a language isolate or small language family that is spoken by some 140,000 Purépecha in the highlands of Michoacán, Mexico. Purépecha was the main language of the pre-Columbian Tarascan State and became widespread in the region during its heyday in the late post-Classic period. The small town of Purepero got its name from the indigenous people who lived there. Even though it is spoken within the boundaries of Mesoamerica, Purépecha does not share many of the traits defining the Mesoamerican language area, suggesting that the language is a remnant of an indigenous pre-Aztec substrate that existed several thousands of years ago before the migration of speakers that contributed to the formation of the sprachbund, or alternatively is a relatively new arrival to the area. Classification Purépecha has long bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toltec
The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, reaching prominence from 950 to 1150 CE. The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tollan, ''Tōllān'' (Nahuatl language, Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization; in the Nahuatl language the word ''Tōltēkatl'' (singular) or ''Tōltēkah'' (plural) came to take on the meaning "artisan". The Aztec oral tradition, oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of a Toltec Empire, giving lists of rulers and their exploits. Modern scholars debate whether the Aztec narratives of Toltec history should be given credence as descriptions of actual historical events. While all scholars acknowledge that there is a lar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Museum Of Anthropology
The National Museum of Anthropology ( es, Museo Nacional de Antropología, MNA) is a national museum of Mexico. It is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. Located in the area between Paseo de la Reforma and Mahatma Gandhi Street within Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, the museum contains significant archaeological and anthropological artifacts from Mexico's pre-Columbian heritage, such as the Stone of the Sun (or the Aztec calendar stone) and the Aztec Xochipilli statue. The museum (along with many other Mexican national and regional museums) is managed by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Institute of Anthropology and History), or INAH. It was one of several museums opened by Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos in 1964. Assessments of the museum vary, with one considering it "a national treasure and a symbol of identity. The museum is the synthesis of an ideological, scientific, and political feat." Octavio Paz criticized the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centennial Exposition
The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Officially named the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, it was held in Fairmount Park along the Schuylkill River on fairgrounds designed by Herman J. Schwarzmann. Nearly 10 million visitors attended the exposition, and 37 countries participated in it. Precursor The Great Central Fair on Logan Square in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1864 (also known as the Great Sanitary Fair), was one of the many United States Sanitary Commission's Sanitary Fairs held during the Civil War. They provided a creative and communal means for ordinary citizens to promote the welfare of Union soldiers and dedicate themselves to the survival of the nation, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
