CHRONOLOGY

Dedicated the largest pyramids to the Sun and the Moon and to Quetzalcoatl (kate-zahl-CO-ah-tal), the feathered serpent, a culture-god believed to be the originator of agriculture and the arts. Murals suggest that another pair of powerful gods, the storm-god Tlaloc and a powerful female god associated with fertility, were also central figures in the city's religious life. Like the earlier

The Temple of the Sun The temple of the sun is the largest pyramid in Tenochtitlan. The smaller temple of Quetzalcoatl displays the serpent images associated with this culture god common to most Mesoamerican civilizations.

Olmec, people living at Teotihuacan practiced human sacrifice, illustrated by the discovery of more than a hundred sacrificial victims during the excavation of the temple of Quetzalcoatl. Scholars believe that residents viewed sacrifice as a sacred duty to the gods and as essential to the well-being of society.

Chinampas Raised fields constructed along lake-shores in Mesoamerica to increase agricultural yields.

The rapid growth in urban population initially resulted from a series of volcanic eruptions that disrupted agriculture. Later, as the city elite increased their power, they forced farm families from the smaller villages in the region to relocate to the urban core. As a result, more than two-thirds of the city's residents retained their dependence on agriculture, walking out from urban residences to their fields. The elite organized the city's growing labor resources to bring marginal lands into production, drain swamps, construct irrigation canals, and build terraces into hillsides. They also expanded the use of chinampas (chee-NAM-pahs), sometimes called “floating gardens.” These were narrow artificial islands constructed along lakeshores or in marshes by farmers who heaped lake muck and waste material on beds of reeds and anchored them to the shore. Chinampas permitted year-round agriculture—because of subsurface irrigation and resistance to frost—and thus played a crucial role in sustaining the region's growing population.

The city's role as a religious center and commercial power provided both divine approval of and a material basis for the elite's increased wealth and status. Members of the elite controlled the state bureaucracy, tax collection, and commerce. Their rich and ornate clothing, their abundant diet, and their large, well-made residences signaled the wealth and power of aristocratic families. Temple and palace murals make clear the central position and great prestige of the priestly class as well. Teotihuacan's economy and religious influence drew pilgrims from as far away as Oaxaca and Veracruz. Many became permanent residents.

Unlike the other classic-period civilizations, the people of Teotihuacan did not concentrate power in the hands of a single ruler. Although the ruins of their impressive housing compounds demonstrate the wealth and influence of the city's aristocracy, there is no clear evidence that individual rulers or a ruling dynasty gained overarching political power. In fact, some scholars suggest that alliances among elite families or weak kings who were the puppets of these powerful families ruled Teotihuacan.

Decline and Collapse

Historians debate the role of the military in the development of Teotihuacan. The absence of walls or other defensive structures before 500 c. E. suggests that Teotihuacan enjoyed relative peace during its early development. Archaeological evidence, however, reveals that the city created a powerful military to protect long-distance trade and to compel peasant agriculturalists to transfer their surplus production to the city. Unlike later postclassic civilizations, however, Teotihuacan was not an imperial state controlled by a military elite.

It is unclear what forces brought about the collapse of Teotihuacan about 750 c. e. By 500 c. e. the urban population had declined to about 40,000 and the city's residents had begun to build defensive walls. Pictorial evidence from murals indicates that the city's final decades were violent. Scholars have uncovered evidence that the elite had mismanaged resources. Resulting divisions among the ruling elite then led to class conflict and the breakdown of public order. As a result, the most important temples in the city center were destroyed and religious images defaced. Evidence also shows that elite palaces were systematically burned and many of their residents killed. Regardless of the causes, the eclipse of Teotihuacan was felt throughout Mexico and into Central America.

Maya Mesoamerican civilization concentrated in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and in Guatemala and Honduras but never unified into a single empire. Major contributions were in mathematics, astronomy, and development of the calendar.

Agriculture and Urbanization

The Maya

During Teotihuacan's ascendancy in the north, the Maya developed an impressive civilization in the region that today includes Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and southern Mexico (see Map 12.1). Given the difficulties imposed by a tropical climate and fragile soils, the cultural and architectural achievements of the Maya were remarkable. Although they shared a single culture, the Maya never created a single, unified state. Instead, rival kingdoms led by hereditary rulers struggled with each other for regional dominance, much like the Mycenaean-era Greeks (see Chapter 4).

Today Maya farmers prepare their fields by cutting down small trees and brush and then burning the dead vegetation to fertilize the land. Such swidden agriculture (also called shifting agriculture or slash and burn agriculture) can produce high yields for a few years. However,

© Cengage Lea

MAP 12.1

Maya Civilization, 250-1400 c. E. The Maya never created an integrated and unified state. Instead Maya civilization developed as a complex network of independent city states.

® Interactive Map

It uses up the soil's nutrients, eventually forcing farmers to move to more fertile land. The high population levels of the Maya classic period (250-900 c. E.) required more intensive forms of agriculture. Maya living near the major urban centers achieved high agricultural yields by draining swamps and building elevated fields. They used irrigation in areas with long dry seasons, and they terraced hillsides in the cooler highlands. Maya agriculturists also managed nearby forests, favoring the growth of the trees and shrubs that were most useful to them, as well as promoting the conservation of deer and other animals hunted for food.

During the classic period, Maya city-states proliferated. The most powerful cities controlled groups of smaller dependent cities and a broad agricultural zone by building impressive religious temples and by creating rituals that linked the power of kings to the gods. Open plazas were surrounded by high pyramids and by elaborately decorated palaces often built on high ground or on constructed mounds. The effect was to awe the masses drawn to the centers for religious and political rituals.

The Great Plaza at Tikal The impressive architectural and artistic achievements of the classic-era Maya are still visible in the ruins of Tikal, in modern Guatemala. Maya centers provided a dramatic setting for the rituals that dominated public life. Construction of Tikal began before 150 b. c.e.; the city was abandoned about 900 c. e. A ball court and residences for the elite were part of the Great Plaza.

The Mesoamerican Ball Game From Guatemala to Arizona, archaeologists have found evidence of an ancient ball game played with a solid rubber ball on slope-sided courts shaped like a capital T. Among the Maya the game was associated with a creation myth and thus had deep religious meaning. Evidence suggests that some players were sacrificed. In this scene from a ceramic jar, players wearing elaborate ritual clothing—which includes heavy, protective pads around the chest and waist—play with a ball much larger than the ball actually used in such games. Some representations show balls drawn to suggest a human head.

Religion and Political Organization

The Maya loved decoration. Carved decorations painted in bright colors covered nearly all public buildings. Religious allegories, the genealogies of rulers, and important historical events were the most common motifs. The Maya also erected beautifully carved altars and stone monoliths near major temples. This rich legacy of monumental architecture was constructed without the aid of wheels—no pulleys, wheelbarrows, or carts—or metal tools. Masses of men and women aided only by levers and stone tools cut and carried construction materials and lifted them into place.

The Maya divided the cosmos into three layers connected along a vertical axis that traced the course of the sun. The earthly arena of human existence held an intermediate position between the heavens, conceptualized by the Maya as a sky-monster, and a dark underworld. The Maya believed that a sacred tree rose through the three layers; its roots were in the underworld, and its branches reached into the heavens. The temple precincts of Maya cities physically represented essential elements of this religious cosmology. The pyramids were sacred mountains reaching to the heavens. The doorways of the pyramids were portals to the underworld.

Rulers and other members of the elite served both priestly and political functions. They decorated their bodies with paint and tattoos and wore elaborate costumes of textiles, animal skins, and feathers to project both secular power and divine sanction. These lords communicated directly with the supernatural residents of the other worlds and with deified royal ancestors through bloodletting rituals and hallucinogenic trances.

The Maya infused warfare with religious meaning and celebrated it in elaborate rituals. Battle scenes and the depiction of the torture and sacrifice of captives were frequent decorative themes. Typically, Maya military forces fought to secure captives rather than territory. The king, his kinsmen, and other ranking nobles actively participated in war. Elite captives were nearly always sacrificed; captured commoners were more likely to be forced to labor for their captors.

Maya Women

Few women directly ruled Maya kingdoms, but Maya women of the ruling lineages did play important political and religious roles. The consorts of male rulers participated in bloodletting rituals and in other important public ceremonies, and their noble blood helped legitimate the rule of their husbands. Although Maya society was patrilineal (tracing descent in the male line), there is clear evidence that some male rulers traced their lineages bilaterally (in both the male and female lines). Others, like Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau's son discussed earlier, emphasized the female line if it held higher status. Little is known about the lives of poorer women, but scholars believe that women played a central role in the religious rituals of the home. They were also heal-

SECTION REVIEW

The End of the Classic Era

Teotihuacan, one of the largest Mesoamerican cities, was ruled by elites who used religious rituals and military power to legitimize their authority over the many laborers who worked the surrounding fields.

Teotihuacan's impressive urban architecture, complex agriculture, and extensive trade made it a dominating cultural presence throughout Mesoamerica. Its collapse around 750 c. e. resulted from conflicts within the elite and resource mismanagement.

The Maya shared a single culture but never created a single, unified state. Instead the Maya developed numerous powerful city-states. Each city, filled with highly decorated monumental architecture, was a religious and political center for the surrounding region.

Religious architecture dominated the centers of Teotihuacan and Maya cities. Many gods were worshipped and religious ritual, including, human sacrifice, organized collective life.

The Maya devised an elaborate calendar system, the concept of zero, and writing.

After centuries of expansion, the power of the Maya cities declined due to an intensified struggle for resources, leading to class conflict and warfare.

Ers and shamans. Women were essential to the household economy, maintaining essential garden plots and weaving, and in the management of family life.

The Maya made important contributions to the development of the Mesoamerican calendar and to mathematics and writing. Time was a central concern, and they developed an accurate calendar system. They identified each day by three separate dating systems. The Maya calendar tracked a ritual cycle (260 days divided into thirteen months of 20 days). A second calendar tracked the solar year (365 days divided into eighteen months of 20 days, plus 5 unfavorable days at the end of the year). The Maya believed that the very survival of humanity was threatened every fifty-two years when the two calendars coincided. Alone among Meso-american peoples, the Maya also maintained a continuous “long count” calendar, which began with creation in 3114 B. c.E.

Maya mathematics and writing provided the foundations for both the calendars and the astronomical observations on which they were based. Their system of mathematics incorporated the concept of the zero and place value but had limited notational signs. Maya writing was a form of hieroglyphic inscription that signified whole words or concepts as well as phonetic cues or syllables. Scribes recorded aspects of public life, religious belief, and the biographies of rulers and their ancestors in books, on pottery, and on the stone columns and monumental buildings of the urban centers. In this sense every Maya city was a sacred text.

Between 800 and 900 c. e. the Maya abandoned many of their major urban centers. Many cities were destroyed by violence, although a small number of classic-period centers survived for centuries. Decades of urban decline, social conflict, and increased levels of warfare preceded this collapse in some areas. The earlier collapse of Teotihuacan around 750 had disrupted long-distance trade in ritual goods and may have begun to undermine the legitimacy of Maya rulers tied to that distant center. Certainly, rising regional population, climatic change, and environmental degradation undermined the fragile agricultural system that sustained Maya cities long before the collapse. But it was the growing scale and destructiveness of warfare that finally undermined the political legitimacy of ruling lineages and disrupted the web of economic relationships that tied rural agriculturalists to Maya cities.