Vocabulary 5 Flashcards
Meso-American
Mesoamerica was a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica, within which pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Glyph
a hieroglyphic character or symbol; a pictograph.
“flanges painted with esoteric glyphs”
2.
ARCHITECTURE
an ornamental carved groove or channel, as on a Greek frieze.
Olmec
1.
a member of a prehistoric people inhabiting the coast of Veracruz and western Tabasco on the Gulf of Mexico ( circa 1200–400 BC), who established what was probably the first Meso-American civilization.
2.
a people living in the same general area as the prehistoric Olmec during the 15th and 16th centuries.
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Aztec
a member of the American Indian people dominant in Mexico before the Spanish conquest of the 16th century.
2.
the extinct language of the Aztecs, a Uto-Aztecan language from which modern Nahuatl is descended.
Hernan Cortes
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (Spanish pronunciation: [erˈnaŋ korˈtes ðe monˈroj i piˈθaro]; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of
Montezuma
Montezuma was emperor of the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish conquest. Montezuma tried to appease the Spanish but failed and was captured by them and deposed. During the ensuing Aztec revolt he was either killed by his own people or murdered by the Spanish.
Yucatán peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea, encompassing 3 Mexican states, plus portions of Belize and Guatemala. On the Caribbean, Mexico’s Riviera Maya resort strip is bookended by 2 popular destinations: Cancún, with its high-rise hotels and nightlife, and, down the coast, quieter Tulum, a rare seaside example of the Mayan ruins found throughout the peninsula’s interior.
Tikal
Tikal (/tiˈkäl/) (Tik’al in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. Ambrosio Tut, a gum-sapper, reported the ruins to La Gaceta, a Guatemalan newspaper, which named the site Tikal.
Chichenitza
the ruins of an ancient Mayan city, in central Yucatán state, Mexic
Lake texcoco
Lake Texcoco was a natural lake within the Anáhuac or Valley of Mexico. Lake Texcoco is most well known as where the Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan, which was located on an island within the lake
Tenochtitlan
Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Aztec Empire from the middle of the 1300s to the early 1500s. Mexico City was built upon some of the ruins of Tenochtitlan. In this lesson, you’ll learn about this historic city, and then you can test your knowledge with a quiz.
Chavin
vin. or Cha·vín (chä-vēn′) n. An early pre-Incan civilization that flourished in northern and central Peru from about 900 to 200 bc, known for its carved stone sculptures and boldly designed ceramics. [After Chavín de Huántar.]
Inca
a South American hummingbird having mainly blackish or bronze-colored plumage with one or two white breast patches.
Andes
a mountain range in W South America, extending about 4500 miles (7250 km) from N Colombia and Venezuela S to Cape Horn. Highest peak, Aconcagua, 22,834 feet (6960 meters
Quechua
a member of an American Indian people of Peru and parts of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador.
2.
the language or group of languages of the Quechua.
Sacrifice
an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure.
Francisco
Francisco Pizarro González was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that conquered the Inca Empire. He captured and killed Incan emperor Atahualpa and claimed the lands for Spain
Stone heads
The Olmec colossal heads are at least seventeen monumental stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. The heads date from at least before 900 BC and are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica.
Maize
technical or chiefly British term for corn1.
Longcount
The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating, vigesimal (base-20) and base-18 calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is often known as the Maya (or Mayan) Long Count calendar.
Machu pichu
Machu Picchu is an Incan citadel set high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, above the Urubamba River valley. Built in the 15th century and later abandoned, it’s renowned for its sophisticated dry-stone walls that fuse huge blocks without the use of mortar, intriguing buildings that play on astronomical alignmen
Copan
Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization located in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. It was the capital city of a major Classic period kingdom from the 5th to 9th centuries A
Cusco
a city in S Peru: ancient Inca ruins.
Popol vuh
The Popol Vuh is the story of creation according to the Quiche Maya of the region known today as Guatemala. Translated as The Council Book', The Book of the People' or, literally, The Book of the Mat’, the work has been referred to as “The Mayan Bible” although this comparison is imprecise.Mar 21, 201
