Teotihuacan Flashcards
What are the ancient representations of Teotihuacan?
- Murals
- Pyramids
- Sculptures of gods
What are the modern representations of Teotihuacan?
- Excavations
- Education through tourism
What is the location of Teotihuacan?
- Located in the Mexico Valley about 50km north east of Mexico city.
- Mesoamerican city
- Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes
- Origins of its founders is uncertain
What are the key features of the site of Teotihuacan?
- Pyramid of the sun
- Pyramid of the moon
- Temple of the feathered serpent
- Avenue of the dead runs through the site and connects the temples with more than 200 additional buildings (includes apartment complexes)
Major geographical features of Teotihuacan
- Volcanoes
- Surrounding mountains
- Caves
- River flowing through
- Close to a supply of obsidian which was used in rituals and weapons
- Chinampas - agricultural purposes
- Ash fertilised the soil
What were the four surrounding civilisations in Teotihuacan?
- Mixtecs
- Aztecs
- Mayans
- Zapotec
Who are the Zapotecs?
- Polytheistic religion
- Gods connected to natural elements
- Belief in the supernatural
- Religious city Mitla
- Tombs underground
- Murals and art
Who are the Mayans?
- Polytheistic and animism
- Rituals include blood letting to appease gods
- Deadly ball game to represent the battle between gods
Who are the aztecs?
- Structured society
- Advanced civilisation
- Education was important
- Blood letting and human sacrifice
Who are the Mixtecs?
- Worshipped natural elements
- Child sacrifices
What were the plans for Teotihuacan?
- Planned city
- Lived in another civilisation while it was being built
- Built over earlier structures
- Plan integrated natural elements
- Humans eroded the site
- Modern mexico is built on top of ancient city
- Makes it difficult to excavate
What were the main features of landmarks in Teotihuacan?
- Steep steps
- Cobblestone
- Murals, paintings
- Sculptures of gods
- Housing
- Plazas
- Avenue of the dead was a wide path
What are the archaeological sources of Teotihuacan?
- Pyramid of the sun
- Pyramid of the moon
- Uncovered through archaeological digs
What do the murals and artifacts depict?
- gods, rituals and daily activities
- artifacts include obsidian tools
- give insight to religious and cultural practices of inhabitants
What are the iconography and glyphs?
- Feathered serpent glyph is a recurring symbol in Teotihucan art
- Study of symbols images and writings
- Provides information on language, religious beliefs and social organisation
Examples of architectural analysis
- Alignment of the buildings such as the avenue of the dead with celestial events
What was the use of radiocarbon dating?
- Used to date organic materials such as burial sites and construction layers
- Establish a timeline for Teotihucans development
What are examples of glyphs?
- Jaguar (power and war - war god)
- Headdresses indicate rank, divinity or particular roles
- Clothing (represents rulers, highly ranked priests)
- Represents their elite status or connection to the gods
What are the limitations of the evidence of Teotihaucan?
- Lack of written records
- Lot of it remains unexcavated because there are modern buildings on top
- Environmental damage
What was the significance of the TMP?
- First excavation site to record findings on technology
- Preserved the information so it wouldn’t get lost and other archaeologists wouldn’t have to start over
- Done in a grid system to ensure efficiency and validity
Who was Quetzalcoatl?
- Feathered serpent
- Creator (main god
- Patron of rain, science and agriculture
- Represented through bird/snake hybrid
- Worshipped through human sacrifices
What was Quetzalpapalotl?
- Complex that has become ruins in Teotihuacan
- Represented in mythological birds and courtyard pillars
Describe the nature of everyday life in Teotihuacan
- Oligarchy (ruled by a few elites)
- Similar to a democracy
- Lot of working class (small elite class)
- Stable population (peaceful or strong army)
- Multi-ethnic society suggested by skeletons of individuals from isotopic analysis
- Evidence provided from Renee Millon (anthropologist)
What were the reasons for the collapse of Teotihuacan?
- Burnt down at around 550CE
- May be because of external attack or internal rebellion
- Premeditated (outer source of invasion)
- Failure of the ruling elite
- Class wars
- Environmental problems
