PreColumbian Flashcards
Central and South America
- Reflects wide diversity in rainfall, vegetation, and topology
- Natural resources play a part in types and styles of design
- Religion exerts strong influence on architectural design.
The Olmecs
- Earliest of important Central American civilizations to reach maturity
- Great founders of Mesoamerican culture; called jaguar people
- Jaguar was a rain symbol and chief deity(god)
- Excelled at pottery and moving large stones great distances
La Venta
- Built on an island
- First example of temple-focused city type
- Ceremonial center dominated by a great pyramid exactly a double square in plan and top is a square platform
- Elements are disposed symmetrically around the long axis of the pyramid
- Inventors of a basket ball-like game
- Had smaller pyramids, burial mounds, great colonnaded courtyards and plazas, giant stone heads as much as 9ft tall
Stelae
stone slab or pillar used commemoratively, as a grave stone, or to mark a site
- Stale were carved with calendric glyphs in low relief, presumably commemorating astronomical events
- Large monolithic altars were also produced, their carvings showing the jaguar god, priests in elaborate collars and headdresses
- Carved miniatures of jade, rock crystal, and less valuable stones
Metals:
copper, gold, silver, and tin
Minerals:
iron ores, slate, onyx, obsidian, jade, and turquoise
Textile resources are
cotton and llama, vicuna, and alpaca wool in dry places agave plant used for coarser textiles, rope, and twine.
Jade:
cool to the touch, lustrous, sometimes translucent, can be given high polish; it is exceptionally hard, impossible even to stratch with steel, and the difficultly of mining and carving it only adds to the value of finished pieces
American Silk :
harvested from silkworm that fed on the ailanthus tree, produced a crepe fabric and was often dyed bright magenta
Teotihuacan
-Name of a citythat existed northeast of the central lake in the great plain of the Valley of Mexico; means the “Place of the Gods”
- 200,000 inhabitants, most populus city in the Americas and sixth in the world
- Great ceremonial center 2 miles in length and 130 ft wide named the “Road of the Dead”
- The center had hundreds of stone platforms and groups of chamered buildings
Teotihuacan is dominated by three structures:
-southern end. The Temple of Quetzalcoatl(Plumed Serpent)
o Midpoint, the Pyramid of the Sun
o North, Pyramid of the Moon
Distinctive architectural feature common throughout the ceremonial complex was ?
framed masonry panel
Structures were faced with what?
fine stone carvings, and finished with layers of white and red stucco
Tablero :
- framed masonry panel, cantilevered from the sloping sides of the pyramids.
Reliefs pictured the heads of two gods:
- The plumed serpent, shown as a sharp-fanged, fire-breathing, feathered dragon
- The rain god, shown as a geometrically stylized mask with ringed eyes
- The background of the reliefs are nautical
- The city is laid out in a rectangular grid.
- The city lacked surrounding walls or fortifications, demonstrating the society’s power.
Zapotecs
- Present day city of Oaxaca
- Mountaintop acropolis protected against invasion by steep cliffs falling away on all sides
- In its center and ringing its edges are disposed a dozen impressive pyramidal
Monte Alban
(White Mountain) sacred capital of Zapotecs
o City of the gods and of the dead
o Tomb interiors were vibrant with frescos of deities and priests
o Exterior of tombs was polychrome stucco
Chichen Itza
o was the great ceremonial site of the Mayans. Hear of the site is the foursided pyramid called Castillo
- Staircase on each sided guided by serpents
- Chacmool
Chacmool
piece of ritual furniture
Cenote
deep pool used for sacrifical offering
Ballcourt was the largest built in Central America some features are?
Sculptured relief panels showing a victorious team holding the severed heads of their opponentsar Palenque
Frescos at Bonampak
Bonampak( painted walls) ceremonial center built in tropical rain forest
Mayan Furniture
o little furniture except for royalty
o Jaguar throne
The Moche
Built pyramids and palaces of plastered walls covered with polychrome murals
Moche wares represents what figures?
- fruits and vegtables, animal, deer hunts, warriors in combat, and human sacrifices
- Some portrait vessels are topped with distinct stirrup-shaped spouts
Incas
Adobe used on the coast, stone on highlands, and wood on eastern slopes
Machu Picchu
- Most dramatic building achievement
- Inca Capital was Cuzco
- Surrounded by terraced platforms used for agriculture
- Settlement is centered on an oblong plaza (the only level area)
- There are burial caves, storehouses, shrines niches
- The incas had no silk or flax. Had cotton and abundance of good wool
- Weaving techniques: plain, pattern, tapestries, plaiting and braiding, twill, tie-dye, double cloth, gauze, reps, pile knots, embroidery, and brocade
Animism:
belief that visible world is pervaded by invisible spirits
Shamanism:
belief that each tribe medicine man or shaman could achieve mystical communion with those spirits
Three chief types of archtecture:
defensive, ceremonial, domestic
Pueblos and Kivas:
o Communinal settlements - pueblo
o Kiva - ceremonial chamber
Longhouses:
largest of North American dwelings built by Iroqui and Huron
-Built of wood frames and covered with sheets of bark
Tepee :
onical tent of wooden poles covered with buffalo hides
Wigwam :
house type, eound in plan, dome-shaped made of saplings arched over, tied together, covered with reed mats, nark or thatch
Chickee:
open-sided hut with a broad eaved thatched roof and a living platform raised above the ground
Hogan:
conical built of stone and logs
Mimbres Ware:
progressed from plain brown wares to burnished red ones
-Painted bowls progressed from geometri cpattern to abstracted representations
Turquoise:
imported from persia to Europe that where it gotsit name native to new Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, utah, colorado
- High copper( bright blue)
- High Iron ( green gray)
Chilkat:
dancing robes
