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List of illustrations

  • Cantino planisphere
  • Carta de Colón: La lettera dellisole che ha trovato nuovamente il re dispagna
  • Cortés converses with the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II in Tenochtitlan
  • Lienzo de Tlaxcala: The siege of Tenochtitlan
  • The marriage of Don Martín de Loyola and the Inca Nusta Beatriz, detail
  • Textile
  • Hernando Pizarro's cavalry assaults the Inca ruler Atahualpa at Cajamarca
  • Plumed diadem with mask and pendants
  • Petroglyph of mythical journey
  • Florentine Codex: Quetzalcoatl (fol. 12)
  • The first archaeological drawings of the Aztec "Calendar Stone
  • The first archaeological drawings of the Aztec colossal Coatlicue
  • The Palace of the Governor (Mexico, Uxmal, Yucatán, c. 950)
  • Inca gateway and Valley of Ollantaytambo (Peru, c. 1450)
  • Altar 4 (Guatemala, Maya, Piedras Negras, AD 700–800)
  • Plan of the great shrine at Pachacamac on the coast of Bolivia, c. 500–1532
  • Arthur Posnansky at Tiwanaku, Peru
  • Chart proposing Olmec origins of the rain-god masks in subsequent Mesoamerican syles and cultures
  • Raimondi stela
  • Hopi Snake Dance, Mishongnovi, Arizona
  • Vase of the Seven Gods" (rollout drawing)
  • Cave-temple carved into the living rock of the mountain
  • Interior view of cave-temple at Malinalco
  • Ritual cache
  • Kalasasaya complex, ceremonial gate
  • Lake Atitlán in highland Guatemala
  • Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia
  • The west horizon above Cuzco, Peru, from the Inca Temple of the Sun
  • Sketch of the sunrise horizon, San Francisco peaks, east of the Hopi villages in northern Arizona
  • Book of Chilam Balam of Kaua: Calendar wheel
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer: Cosmological diagram
  • Temple of the Plumed Serpents
  • Temple of the Plumed Serpents at Xochicalco, detail
  • Xiuhmolpilli, sculpture marking the completion of fifty-two-year cycle
  • Codex Mendoza: Priests performing ritual
  • Stela 6
  • Piedras Negras Acropolis, AD 600–700, showing location of Stela 6
  • Coronation stone of Moctezuma II ("Stone of the Five Suns"), top view
  • Coronation stone of Moctezuma II ("Stone of the Five Suns"), side view
  • Coronation stone of Moctezuma II ("Stone of the Five Suns"), base
  • Shamans pray to the ancestral gods at mountain shrine (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Shaman praying with incense (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Statue of Saint Lawrence with coin necklace (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Shaman praying at cross shrine (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Church of Saint Lawrence on a fiesta day (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Map of central Chiapas, Mexico
  • Procession of "mayordomos" (religious elders) (Mexico, Maya, Tzotzil)
  • Drum and flute players for a marching procession of ritualists (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Two costumed "k'uk'ulch'on" ("plumed serpents") at the fiesta of San Sebastián (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Ritualists counting coins (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Zinacanteco religious officials (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Zinacanteco with ribbons on his hat (Mexico, Maya, Zinacantan)
  • Profile of unrestored pyramid, surmounted by a seventeenth-century Spanish church (Mexico, Cholula)
  • Water Goddess
  • The Ritual Way of Teotihuacan (also known as Avenue of the Dead or North-South Avenue) running from the "Citadel" precinct past the Pyramid of the Sun to the Pyramid of the Moon
  • Pyramid of the Plumed Serpent
  • The plaza of Taos Pueblo with Taos mountain, New Mexico
  • Aerial view of Tikal
  • Empire State Building, New York, 1931
  • Pyramids of Gizeh
  • Pyramid of Zoser
  • Puye, with view of Ts'i-Como, "Sacred Mountain of the West
  • Temple of Apollo
  • Knossos with Mount Jouctas
  • The Acropolis
  • Interior of the Pantheon
  • Belvedere Courtyard, Vatican Palace
  • Tivoli Gardens
  • Aerial view of Versailles
  • Bowl depicting man wearing antler headdress and bat costume
  • Petroglyphs
  • Bowl with abstract animal designs
  • Bowl depicting crane and fish
  • Bowl depicting ritual fertility clown
  • Bowl depicting figure carrying basket
  • Bowl depicting masked animal trickster
  • Bowl with four-part cosmological design
  • Bowl depicting antelope on mountain
  • Bowl depicting warrior
  • Bowl with insect and rabbit designs
  • Bowl depicting decapitation scene
  • Bowl depicting ceremonial performer holding staff with animal effigies
  • Bowl depicting bear-hunting scene
  • Bowl depicting figure, basket, and staff
  • Bowl depicting two figures and large fish
  • Bowl with bat design
  • Drawing of triangles as zone-filling elements
  • Bowl depicting four figures
  • Bowl depicting horned toad
  • Petroglyphs
  • Petroglyphs
  • View of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
  • Long House ruin
  • Aerial view of Pueblo Bonito Great House, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
  • Chetro Ketl
  • Unexcavated ruin of Peñasco Blanco
  • Pueblo of Taos (c. 1400–Present), Sangre de Christo Mountains, New Mexico
  • Door alignments at Pueblo Bonito
  • Rear wall of Pueblo Bonito
  • Kin Kletso ("Yellow House")
  • Great kiva, plaza of Chetro Ketl
  • Kivas, Pueblo del Arroyo
  • Rinconada Kiva
  • Pueblo Alto
  • Unexcavated Chacoan "outlier"
  • Map of central Chaco Canyon
  • Cave mask
  • Colossal portrait of ruler (Monument 9)
  • Monument 1
  • Altar" 4
  • Monument 1
  • Votive figurine presenting masked baby
  • Drawing of Monument 52
  • Votive axe with ritual mask ("Kunz" axe)
  • Kneeling figure depicting were-jaguar
  • Masquette
  • Monument 19
  • View of Chalcatzingo
  • The Prince
  • Petroglyph 1
  • Kneeling figure of priestly ruler (Monument 1)
  • Commemorative mask of a ruler
  • Drawing of colossal head (Monument 4)
  • Drawing of golden section of Monument 4
  • Mural fragment depicting rain priest
  • The Ritual Way of Teotihuacan (also known as Avenue of the Dead or North-South Avenue)
  • View of the reconstructed Quetzalpapalotl Palace
  • Mural fragment depicting temple facades against backdrop of clouds and rain
  • Plan of Teotihuacan, c. 1–750
  • Aerial view of central Teotihuacan from the Pyramid of the Moon down the Ritual Way
  • Cult figure of goddess
  • Reconstruction of the Tlalocan mural
  • Roof ornament depicting storm-god mask and headdress
  • Drawing of a priestly warrior carrying darts in one hand and a heart on a sacrificial knife in the other
  • Mural fragment depicting glyphic emblem of the water cult
  • Mural fragment depicting two plumed coyotes with heraldic emblems
  • Mural fragment depicting priest in plumed jaguar headdress
  • Ritual mask
  • Tripod vessel depicting plumed serpent
  • Fire-god effigy censer
  • Aerial view of Pyramid E-VII-Sub
  • Reconstructed view of Pyramid E-VII-Sub at Uaxactún (c. 200 BC)
  • Plan of Preclassic El Mirador (c. 200 BC)
  • Tikal, showing Temples I and II
  • Tikal Acropolis
  • Drawing of Stela 11
  • Stela 11
  • Drawing of Altar 10
  • Anthropomorphic mushroom figure
  • Pregnant coatimundi figure
  • Pregnant female ("Kidder Figure")
  • Drawing of stucco panel from Structure H-Sub-10 at Uaxactún, depicting a ruler
  • The terraced pyramid at Cerros
  • The terraced pyramid at Cerros, detail
  • Young Maize God
  • Detail of vessel depicting emergence of the Maize God
  • Figurine of ruler dancing with maize
  • Vase of the Dancing Lords
  • Fragment (Stela 17)
  • Drawing of "wits" glyph
  • Reconstruction of interior doorway of Structure 22 (Honduras, Copán, c. AD 750)
  • Structure 22
  • Drawing of Stela 11
  • Stela 11
  • Carved cache-bowl lid ("Seven Kan Vessel")
  • Lintel with a bloodletting rite (Lintel 25)
  • Funerary vessel with portrait head
  • Mask of Sun God
  • Drawing of hieroglyph "G3" depicting Jaguar God of the Underworld as a war shield
  • Ancestral throne
  • Incense burner depicting ruler on Cauac Monster throne
  • Lintel 3
  • Drawing of sarcophagus lid
  • Lidded vessel of a world-turtle
  • Panel depicting ball game
  • Ritual vessel depicting mask of Tlaloc
  • The Water God Tlaloc
  • Codex Magliabechiano: Ritual impersonator of Tlaloc
  • Aerial view of the rain-cult temple on Mount Tlaloc between the basins of Mexico and Puebla
  • Priest drawing blood for ritual offering
  • Codex Borgia: Five figures of Tlaloc
  • Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca: The birth of the Aztec tribes from the womb of Mount Chicomoztoc ("Seven Caves")
  • Codex Borbonicus: Tlaloc seated on a mountan
  • Codex Borbonicus: Chalchihuitlicue, the "sister" of Tlaloc, Goddess of Water (springs, caves, rivers, and sea)
  • Codex Borbonicus: Earth goddess Tlazolteotl
  • Earth deity Tlatecuhtli (front)
  • Earth deity Tlatecuhtli (back)
  • The Hill of Tetzcotzingo, site of Netzahualcoyotl's ritual center near the city of Tetzcoco
  • Vessel of the Plumed Serpent, Quetzalcoatl ("Cuauhxicalli")
  • The volcano Popocateptl, seen from the site of the Olmec petroglyph at Chalcatzingo
  • Mural fragment depicting a priest as Storm God of Teotihuacan
  • Incense burner depicting deity
  • The Basin of Mexico, looking east, near the date of the winter solstice
  • Codex Borbonicus: The primordial male and female creative forces, personified as Ometecuhtli-Omecihuatl
  • Map of Tenochtitlan and Gulf of Mexico
  • Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca: The mythical red and blue origin springs
  • Codex Mendoza: The founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
  • Aerial view of Main Pyramid excavation
  • Model of the Main Pyramid
  • Codex Borbonicus: Huitzilopochtli with his emblematic hummingbird headdress, fire-serpent wand, and warrior's shield with darts
  • Sculptural relief of Coyolxauhqui, Huitzilopochtli's mythical adversary
  • Male figure, possibly an attendant of an earth goddess
  • Old earth god Tepeyollotl ("Heart of the Mountain")
  • Fire serpent Xiuhcoatl
  • Sacrificial cosmological altar
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer: Cosmological diagram
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
  • Codex Dresden: Three almanac pages
  • Codex Borbonicus: The eleventh "week" of thirteen days and nights ruled by the deity Patecatl
  • Lienzo de Zacatepec, no. 1: Map
  • Codex Xolotl, map 1: The migrating Chichimec settle in the Valley of Mexico during the thirteenth century
  • Codex Mexicanus: Manuscript page showing chronological events at Tenochtitlan
  • Codex Zouche-Nuttall: The ruler Eight-Deer has his nose septum perforated in a dynastic kingship rite
  • Plaque with figural relief
  • Bowl depicting dancer
  • Helmet depicting animal impersonator
  • Plaque depicting composite animals
  • Plaque depicting ritually attired performer
  • Pedestal bowl with crouching-frog design
  • Jar with modeled animal features
  • Jar with dragonlike design
  • Plate depicting millipede figure
  • Bowl with hammerhead-shark design
  • Drawing of detail of plate with abstract zoomorphic designs
  • Chief Lacenta with family and attendants en route to a festival, Panama, 1681
  • Plaque depicting human and animal features
  • Armband depicting confronted felines and raptorial birds
  • Pedestal bowl depicting dancer wearing crocodile mask
  • Pedestal bowl wth abstract design of aquatic and dragonlike creatures
  • Festival celebrant adorned with birds
  • Funerary mask
  • In the tropical riverine setting on the coast of Ecuador, canoes and balsa rafts remain an indispensable means of transportation
  • Model of hut with figure in ritual seclusion
  • Model of hut with shamanistic scene
  • Mask with scarification pattern
  • Pendant or mask
  • Phallic feline
  • Vessel depicting mask and mythical creature
  • Seat in the form of mythical creature
  • Model of trophy head
  • Ritual sower with seed bag and staff
  • Figure seated on harvest of manioc roots
  • Vessel in the form of masked warrior
  • Female keeper of the lineage insignia
  • Chieftain chewing coca
  • Figure bearing tripod throne
  • Seated chieftain wearing a double carved-tusk pendant
  • Pectoral depicting seated chieftain with raptorial birds
  • In the rugged Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, certain peaks are considered sacred by the Kogi Indians, who are descended from the Tairona
  • Ciudad Perdida
  • Plan of central axis of Ciudad Predida (1200–1600)
  • Preparations for rites in a Kogi village in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia
  • Ceremonial baton
  • Masked performers
  • Model of ritual enclosure with hanging masks
  • Bat pendant with sharks
  • Excavated burial mound
  • Stela
  • Circular pectoral depicting sun god
  • Ocarina with enthroned chieftain
  • Pectoral or pendant depicting sun god
  • Pendant depicting masked priestly figure
  • Enthroned figure with mask and batons
  • Pendant depicting frigate bird
  • Winged pendant depicting frigate bird
  • Pectoral depicting frigate bird with avian attendants
  • Winged pendant depicting birds carrying squatting male figures
  • Pectoral depicting litter-borne sun god
  • The temple complex of Chavín de Huántar (900–200 BC) in Peru was built at the confluence of rivers to address the waters and mountains of the Peruvian Andes
  • Plan of the sacred center at Chavín de Huántar (900–200 BC) showing the sunken courtyards and the U-shaped system of platforms
  • Roll-out drawing of the Tello Obelisk
  • Tello Obelisk at Chavín de Huántar
  • Vessel depicting Spondylus shell
  • Drawing of the Lanzón at Chavín de Huántar
  • The Lanzón at Chavín de Huántar
  • Tenon head
  • Mortar
  • Offering vessel
  • View of the sunken circular courtyard at Chavín de Huántar, encircled by sculptural reliefs showing a procession of felines and ritually costumed priestly figures
  • Vessel depicting jaguar
  • Drawing of sculptural relief from the New Temple at Chavín de Huántar showing the principal deity with Strombus and Spondylus shells
  • Drawing of sculptural relief from the New Temple at Chavín de Huántar depicting performer with crested eagle mask
  • Relief fragment
  • Vessel with seed motif
  • Textile fragment depicting masked figures holding staffs
  • Textile fragment with splayed cayman imagery, multiple masks, and serpent motifs
  • Textile fragment depicting earth goddess
  • Mantle
  • Vessel depicting feline
  • Mantle fragment
  • Mantle
  • Mask of "oculate" deity with serpentine motifs
  • Drawing of a black-crowned night heron embroidered on a poncho
  • Drawing of a guanay cormorant embroidered on a turban
  • Drawing of an inca tern embroidered on an unidentified garment type
  • Drawing of a shore bird embroidered on a loincloth
  • Drawing of a male condor embroidered on a mantle
  • Drawing of a female condor embroidered on a poncho
  • Drawing of a falcon embroidered on a poncho
  • Drawing of a falcon embroidered on an unidentified garment type
  • Drawing of a curassow embroidered on a mantle
  • Drawing of a hummingbird embroidered on a small mantle
  • Drawing of a nighthawk embroidered on a poncho
  • Drawing of a mealy parrot embroidered on an unidentified garment type
  • Drawing of a passerine embroidered on a hanging
  • Drawing of a pampas cat embroidered on a skirt
  • Drawing of a snake embroidered on an unidentified garment type
  • Drawing of a shark embroidered on a mantle
  • Drawing of a bird, feline, snake conflation embroidered on a poncho
  • Condor impersonator embroidered on mantle
  • Falcon impersonator embroidered on mantle
  • Pampas cat impersonator embroidered on mantle
  • Drawing of anthropomorphic figure embroidered on mantle
  • Vegetation impersonator embroidered on mantle
  • Shark-falcon impersonator embroidered on mantle
  • Composite figure embroidered on mantle
  • Mantle fragment
  • Aerial view of Nazca lines drawn on the south coast desert
  • Male figure wearing Spondylus-shell necklace
  • Aerial view of Nazca lines depicting mythical fish with shark or killer-whale motifs
  • Vessel with Marine Beings
  • Vessel in the form of "achira" root
  • Vessel in the form of "lúcuma" fruits
  • Vessel depicting ripening maize
  • Woman chewing coca
  • Villagers returning from ceremonies performed at the end of a straight line
  • A sequence of trapezoidal areas and lines served as ritual paths and concourses
  • Hummingbird figure drawn on the desert
  • Double-spouted vessel depicting lizards
  • Vessel depicting mythical landscape
  • Dome-shaped jar depicting ceremonial figure
  • Ritual figure with bannerlike appendages drawn on the desert
  • Drawing of detail of vessel depicting costumed performer
  • Drawing of detail of shallow flared vessel depicting harvest-festival performer
  • Vessel depicting seated chieftain in ceremonial dress
  • Tunic depicting felines and birds
  • Textile with sun motif
  • Portrait vessel of ruler
  • Vessel depicting seven-peaked mountain
  • Figure paddling raft in the form of supernatural fish, probably representing the sea
  • Reed rafts at Huanchaco, north coast peru
  • Drawing of vessel with raft motif
  • Drawing of vessel depicting sea-lion hunt
  • Vessel depicting fanged god originally associated with mountains
  • Drawing of detail of vessel depicting man facing jaguar
  • Vessel depicting seated ruler with pampas cat
  • Pyramid of the Sun
  • Pyramid of the Moon
  • Vessel depicting cultivated landscape or pyramid
  • Vessel depicting scene related to ritual deer hunt, with mutilated priestly figure at top
  • Emblematic head of fox
  • Vessel depicting kneeling warrior with club
  • Vessel depicting batlike supernatural creature
  • Royal mantle
  • Royal tunic
  • Vessel depicting ritual runners
  • Fanged skull mask
  • View of the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia
  • Chunchukala" stela depicting figure and solar mask
  • Monumental head with mask and headdress
  • Architectural fragment depicting confronted figures
  • Stela in the form of guardian figure
  • Sunken plaza and ceremonial gate in the Kalasasaya building complex
  • Plan of ceremonial core of Tiwanaku, Bolivia, AD 400–800
  • Illimani, one of Bolivia's sacred mountains overlooking La Paz, is revered today by the Quechua and Aymara Indian population
  • Guardian "chachapuma" figure
  • Gateway of the Sun
  • Diadem mask with radiating tassels
  • Winged diadem depicting mask
  • Architectural fragment with "gateway" motif
  • Incense burner in the form of feline
  • The ancient agricultural fields near Lukurmata, Bolivia, dating from sometime between AD 400 and 800, were part of the vast, highly organized agricultural system managed by Tiwanaku and its outlying towns
  • Portrait vessel
  • Beaker ("kero") with modeled hawk head
  • Beaker ("kero") with modeled feline head
  • Tunic ("unku")
  • Alpacas crossing high pass in the Andes
  • Tasseled hat with avian motifs
  • Quipu
  • Mantle fragment
  • Effigy vessel depicting official
  • Pendant and ear spools
  • Tunic
  • Incense burner in the form of llama
  • Tunic fragment
  • Tapestry depicting birthing llamas
  • Tapestry fragment depicting "mama llama" and herder
  • Tunic depicting enclosure of felines and assembly of figures
  • Tunic fragment
  • The Inti Huatana stone at Machu Picchu
  • Royal seat
  • Cuzco, site of the Inca capital, lay in the triangle between the confluence of the Huatanay and Choque Chacca rivers
  • Stone masonry from foundation wall in Cuzco
  • Drawing of Topa Inca addressing assemblage of idols at a rock shrine
  • Perfectly fitted masonry in shrine at Machu Picchu
  • Defensive walls, ceremonial precinct, and foundations of circular tower at Sacsahuaman
  • Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca
  • The origin rock named Titicaca on the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca
  • View of Machu Picchu
  • A bedrock outcrop carved as a royal dais at Sacsahuaman
  • The enclosed sacred boulder faced a plaza near Urco
  • A sacred rock at Machu Picchu echoes the shape of the distant mountain
  • Vessel depicting serpents
  • A party of Quechua Indians traversing a ridge with the sacred mountain Salcantay, near Cuzco, Peru, in the background
  • Map of Tahuantinsuyu, the Inca "empire of the four quarters" (1450–1532)
  • The Plaza of Cuzco in Peru was the epicenter of the Inca world and starting point of major Inca state rituals
  • Mount Ausangate in Peru, one of many peaks featured in Inca sacred geography and the site of "capac hucha" (Inca state ritural) sacrifices
  • Mummy from Cerro el Plomo
  • Votive female figurine
  • Archaeologists on summit of Mount Copiapó, Chile, where another "capac hucha" burial was uncovered
  • Votive female figurine
  • Isla de la Plata, off the coast of Ecuador, was a sacred island long before the Inca arrived in the late fifteenth century
  • Votive female figurines found with burial on Isla de la Plata
  • Suite of miniature vessels and serving dishes found with burial on Isla de la Plata
  • Cuzco and the "ceque" (sight-line) system
  • Drawing of corpse of Inca king Huayna Capac being borne to Cuzco on litter
  • Model of funeral procession
Free
Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Contents
Author
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.001
Free
Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
A century ago, in 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition was held in the city of Chicago. Expressing the optimism of that era, this international fair celebrated the idea of universal progress, the promise of science and industry, and the seemingly limitless prospect of economic growth and prosperity. The assumptions and values reflected in the organization of this exposition were also evident in the growth of the city and the vast transformation of the man-made environment in the United States …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.002
Free
Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The question of understanding a new, unfamiliar, cultural and geographic setting has deep personal roots for me, from the time in 1947 when my parents moved from the United States to Mexico to write and illustrate children’s books. This marked the beginning of travels to monuments and landscapes that reflect that country’s extraordinary history and scenic presence. These acknowledgments therefore begin with my parents, Charles Townsend and Ellis Credle. My first encounters with the remains of …
Author
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.003
Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The variety of meanings attributed to the landing of Christopher Columbus on October 12, 1492, on the small island that he baptized San Salvador, now known as Samana Cay, derives from the historical consequences of that event. Had Columbus and his companions disappeared in a confrontation with the natives, or if, for some other reason, the news of his “discovery” had never reached Europe, his landing would have had little significant consequence. As it happened, 1492 marked the beginning of …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.15-21
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.004

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Chapter Opener
Author
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.005

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
On a clear, sunlit day in 1925, the psychologist Carl Jung stood by the small river that runs through the middle of Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. Writing later about this experience, Jung described silent, blanket-wrapped figures on the flat roofs of the adobe buildings, absorbed by the sight of the sun, and by the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range rising above the sweeping plateau (see Scully essay in this book, fig. 5). An elderly Indian spoke unexpectedly from behind the visitor: “Do you not …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.29-47
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.006

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
What is time? Saint Augustine answered, in effect: if you do not ask me, I know what it is; it is only when I am asked to express it in words that I have a problem. Ideas about time, modes of reckoning it, ways of using it—these form one sphere among a universe of beliefs and customs viewed through the distinctive cultural lenses of diverse indigenous peoples. These ideas differed greatly from the temporal notions held by the Europeans who came to these shores half a millennium ago. The …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.49-59
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.007

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The cosmological concepts that shaped the world view of the ancient Maya did not disappear entirely with the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. In remote areas of Maya territory, we are still encountering traditional patterns of life that vividly display the intimate relationship between man and nature in the sacred geography and in the concepts of time and space that were central to the cosmovision of the pre-Columbian Maya. We are also discovering how ancient Maya symbols and meanings …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.61-69
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.008

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
I hope I will not be misunderstood if I say that the “Ancient Americas” exhibition is, for me, a culmination of my interests over the past thirty-five years and, in one sense, a justification of them. From 1955 until 1963, I studied the relationship between temples and landscape in Greece, while, from 1964 until 1973, I worked on similar problems in the American Southwest and Mesoamerica. In 1975, I began to study French gardens and fortifications of the seventeenth century from the same point …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.71-81
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.009

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Among the diverse areas in the United States where Amerindian peoples carry on their traditions, the Southwest preserves an especially vital connection between the present and past. Pueblo communities along the Rio Grande Valley and scattered across western New Mexico and northern Arizona trace their origins to the Anasazi peoples of the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, and, even farther back, to an archaic desert culture of hunters and foragers during the first millennium BC. In this vast …
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PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.85-86
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.010

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The Mimbres people of southwestern New Mexico belonged to a branch of prehistoric Southwestern culture that we call the Mogollon. From about 200 to 1000, they lived in small pithouse villages that rarely included more than ten or fifteen households. Later, their settlements comprised suites of contiguous rooms that were built around plazas and numbered at most two or three hundred people. As subsistence farmers, they cultivated the river valleys that traversed the arid Sonoran desert and also …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.89-100
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.011

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
After the United States Army took the region of New Mexico from the Republic of Mexico in the War of 1847, the citizens of New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. read in the illustrated weeklies of the remarkable ruins at Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon (see figs. 1, 2). The public imagination peopled these exotic buildings with conveniently vanished civilizations: the lost tribes of Israel, Phoenicians, and—a little more realistically—the “Chichimec” peoples who left their homes in the north and …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.103-113
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.012

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
“Mesoamerica” is a term used by archaeologists to name an area comprising the southern half of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of eastern Central America. This is a complex geographic region encompassing the central plateau of Mexico, a lush tropical coastal plain on the Gulf, the flat limestone expanse of the Yucatán peninsula, and the mountains and lowland forests of Guatemala and Belize. The uplands are shaken periodically by violent earthquakes, and snowcapped volcanoes rise as …
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PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.117-118
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.013

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The concept of “the Olmec” emerged with the discovery and comparison of monumental and small-scale sculptures whose forms showed similarities, and even identical characteristics, that were different from those of sculptures from other ancient Mexican cultures known at the time. This surprising and novel artistic style was an indication of the first, firm imprints of high civilization in the Mesoamerican region.
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.121-133
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.014

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Teotihuacan is called simply Las Pirámides (“The Pyramids”), in Mexico, because the colossal Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, located only an hour away from the capital, are, to many, synonymous with pre-Columbian civilization (see fig. 2). The neutral term “pyramids,” however, indicates how little we know about the archaeological site. Teotihuacan, the Aztec name for the city, means “Place of the Gods,” because the Aztec could not imagine that human hands could have built the pyramids. In myth, …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.135-145
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.015

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
For generations, archaeologists have tried to determine just when ancient Maya civilization emerged and what that period of emergence meant to the later, fully developed Classic period (250–900). Early in this century, archaeologists did not expect to find buildings that predated the presence of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions on stone, and, perhaps as a result of their intellectual expectations, they found few clues to the rise of civilization and the formation of an ethnic and cultural identity.
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.147-157
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.016

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
In the long darkness before creation, the Maya gods pondered the dawning of a new age and the making of a people who would honor them. The gods sought yellow corn and white corn; for, as the Maya later wrote in a sixteenth-century narrative, the Popol Vuh, “These were the ingredients for the flesh of the human work, the human design.” The maize was ground with water to yield flesh and blood. The gods had tried to create humankind before, but their first attempt at creation, the animals of the …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.159-169
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.017

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Among the thousands of objects discovered during the excavation of the ruins of the Aztec Main Pyramid in downtown Mexico City was a pair of spectacular ritual water jars, modeled with the mask of the deity Tlaloc and painted brilliant blue (see fig. 1). The goggled eyes, fanged mouth, and heron feathers repeat the features on carved wooden and turquoise-inlaid masks worn by religious performers who appeared as Tlaloc in festivals held in the Aztec capitals (see figs. 2, 3). The cult of Tlaloc …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.171-185
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.018

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Many agrarian and militaristic states have responded in similar ways to the fundamental economic and ideological necessities that confront them. Their responses stem from the particular ways in which they comprehend the universe around them. People depend on nature, and, in their endeavors as productive beings, they actively transform the natural world. At the same time, they also construct a pantheon of gods to whom they ascribe the creative power of all that exists. It is these gods who …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.187-195
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.019

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The human need to record and thereby preserve information for later use manifests itself pictorially and hieroglyphically in Mesoamerica to an extent not seen elsewhere in the ancient Americas. Mesoamerican peoples developed several pictographic writing systems to preserve their knowledge; they painted and carved images on walls, containers, and sculptures, but, more fundamentally, they painted in books. The painter-authors and keepers of the books were guardians of community knowledge and …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.197-209
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.020

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
A green canopy of tropical forest extends down from Central America across the narrow Panamanian isthmus to the tropical coastal plain of northwestern South America. The Cauca and Magdalena rivers flow the length of Colombia between three cordilleras, reaching the warm lowlands and the waters of the Caribbean. The mountains coalesce toward the south in the high Andean escarpment marked by snowcapped volcanoes—Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, Cayambe, and others—that rise from fertile upland valleys along …
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PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.213-214
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.021

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
It is a tremendous intellectual challenge for people of the western industrial age to comprehend the attitudes and beliefs of those whose lives were shaped by far different cultures, and whose cultural records are very limited—all the more so when the societies in question ceased to exist in their traditional form almost five hundred years ago. The peoples living in the Isthmus of Panama at the time of European contact are known to us most directly by ethnohistorical accounts written by the …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.217-226
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.022

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
One of the principal objectives of modern archaeology is to comprehend the cultural significance of the material vestiges of ancient societies. Interpretation of the art and architecture of past civilizations in South America, where written texts were not developed, depends on the identification of patterns of signs and symbols. These provide clues to coherent visual codes that may lead to the discovery and understanding of other ways of ordering the world. The archaeologist can recover only …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.229-243
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.023

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The conquest of a great part of Mesoamerica and South America was accomplished by the Spaniards in a relatively brief time. In 1519, Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico and, within two years, had conquered the Aztec empire. In 1527, word reached Francisco Pizarro of the fabulous wealth of kingdoms further south. Cutting short his sojourn in Panama, he led several exploratory forays along the Pacific coast of South America, then sailed to the north coast of Peru, where he struck inland …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.245-257
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.024

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
A forbidding coastal desert traversed by narrow rivers, snowcapped peaks and ranges above the highland basins, and the lush edges of the Amazon forest: these are the contrasting landscapes of the Andes of Peru and adjacent parts of Bolivia. The abundance of the sea and the harvest of domesticated crops from the tropical Amazonian lowlands provided the base for early complex societies in valleys to the east and west of the Andes. During the second millennium BC at Aspero, Moxeke, and other …
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PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.261-262
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.025

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Over two thousand years before the Inca conquests that led to the empire of Tahuantinsuyu, highland peoples created a sacred center at Chavín de Huántar that rivaled Inca Cuzco in grandeur and beauty. According to Julio C. Tello, one of the founding fathers of Peruvian archaeology and the first to excavate Chavín de Huántar, in 1919, this center and the ancient culture that it expressed were responsible for the matrix of civilization from which the Inca and all other pre-Hispanic Andean …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.265-277
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.026

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The word “Paracas” evokes images of handsome post-fire painted pottery decorated in deep, earthy tones (see fig. 2); exquisitely crafted monochrome pottery modeled into the shapes of flora and fauna; and stunning textiles employing masterfully dyed threads and yarns (see figs. 1, 4). These are the principal artistic legacies of a culture that flourished on the south coast of Peru for nine hundred years, from approximately 700 BC to AD 200. This cultural tradition had a wide geographical …
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PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.279-289
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.027

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
On the arid coastal plain of southern Peru arose a culture that was to become one of the most famous in the prehistory of that country. Between roughly 200 BC and AD 600, the people inhabiting the Nazca River system made textiles and ceramics that were of the highest technical and artistic quality. Thanks to the desert climate, many of these objects were well preserved and can be seen in museums much as they appeared to the people who made them nearly two thousand years ago. Among the finest …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.291-301
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.028

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The desert north coast of Peru is bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes to the east. Here, the Moche, or Mochica, people flourished from before the beginning of our era until the seventh century. The cold Peru Current, running in a deep trough offshore, is normally one of the world’s richest fishing grounds. Using rafts formed of bundles of totora reeds, the Moche acquired from the ocean food and probably fertilizer—bird guano from offshore islands, as well as fish for this use.
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.303-315
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.029

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The mystique of the city of Tiwanaku in late pre-Hispanic Andean society was intimately associated with its role as a place of origin in cosmogonic myths. According to the sixteenth-century accounts of Betanzos, Sarmiento, and Molina, it was in Tiwanaku that the creator god Viracocha ordained a new social order, and it was from Tiwanaku that the primeval couple was sent out along symmetrically opposed migratory paths to call forth the nations of the Andean world from springs and rivers, rocks …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.317-333
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.030

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Although ancient Andean textiles remain virtually unknown to the North American public, there is no doubt that the fiber arts played a pre-eminent role in the indigenous cultures that flowered in western South America before the sixteenth-century European invasions. Thousands of well-preserved examples survive to make up the longest, most complete textile record in the world. In the Andean area, the widespread use of textiles preceded that of fired ceramics by at least a thousand years, and …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.335-345
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.031

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
The Incas, the last of the independent pre-Hispanic civilizations of the Andes, had an empire that included the lands within the modern political boundaries of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and parts of Colombia, Chile, and Argentina. The mythic beginnings of the Incas, their arts, and their religion are described in their origin stories. From the outset, the Incas defined themselves in terms of their sacred landscape and the people in it. One origin myth, reported by Bernabé Cobo, a Spanish …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Related print edition pages: pp.347-371
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.032

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
Occasionally, the “otherness” of people living in remote times and distant places is evoked by an event so alien in its particulars, yet startling in its general character, that it encapsulates a whole era and a social configuration. The Inca ritual festival of capac hucha was such an event. This elaborate ceremony, staged periodically by the Inca priesthood, embraced mountains, islands, and religious sanctuaries scattered thousands of kilometers apart throughout Tahuantinsuyu, the Inca name …
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.033

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
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https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.034
Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
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PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.035

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Description: The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes
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https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00118.036
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