Teotihuacan Empire [Classic] design concept.

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

 

Two things set off the Early from the Late Classic: first, the strong Izapan element still discernible in Early Classic Maya culture, and secondly, the appearance in the middle part of the Early Classic of powerful waves of influence, and almost certainly invaders themselves, from the site of Teotihuacan in central Mexico. This city was founded in the first century BC in a small but fertile valley opening onto the northeast side of the Valley of Mexico. On the eve of its destruction at the hands of unknown peoples, at the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century AD, it covered an area of over 5 sq. miles (13 sq. km) and may have had, according to George Cowgill, a preeminent expert on the site, a population of some 85,000 people living in over 2,300 apartment compounds. To fill it, Teotihuacan’s ruthless early rulers virtually depopulated smaller towns and villages in the Valley of Mexico. It was, in short, the greatest city ever seen in the Pre-Columbian New World.

 

Teotihuacan is noted for the regularity of its two crisscrossing great avenues, for its Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, and for the delicacy and sophistication of the paintings which graced the walls of its luxurious palaces. In these murals and elsewhere, the art of the great city is permeated with war symbolism, and there can be little doubt that war and conquest were major concerns to its rulers. Teotihuacan fighting men were armed with atlatl-propelled darts and rectangular shields, and bore round, decorated, pyrite mosaic mirrors on their backs; with their eyes sometimes partly hidden by white shell “goggles,” and their feather headdresses, they must have been terrifying figures to their opponents.

 

At the very heart of the city, facing the main north–south avenue, is the massive Ciudadela (“citadel”), in all likelihood the compound housing the royal palace. Within the Ciudadela itself is the stepped, stone-faced temple-pyramid known as the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (TFS), one of the single most important buildings of ancient Mesoamerica, and apparently well known to the distant Maya right through the end of the Classic. When the TFS was dedicated c. AD 200, at least 200 individuals were sacrificed in its honor. Study of their bone chemistry reveals that not a few are certain to have been foreigners. All were attired as Teotihuacan warriors, with obsidian-tipped darts and back mirrors, and some had collars strung with imitation human jawbones.

 

On the facade and balustrades of the TFS are multiple figures of the Feathered Serpent, an early form of the later Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (patron god of the priesthood) and a figure that may, according to Karl Taube, have originated among the Maya. Alternating with these figures is the head of another supernatural ophidian, with retroussé snout covered with rectangular platelets representing jade, and cut shell goggles placed in front of a stylized headdress in the shape of the Mexican sign for “year.” Taube has conclusively demonstrated this to be a War Serpent, a potent symbol wherever Teotihuacan influence was felt in Mesoamerica – and, in fact, long after the fall of Teotihuacan. Such martial symbolism extended even to the Teotihuacan prototype of the rain deity Tlaloc who, fitted with his characteristic “goggles” and year-sign, also functioned as a war god.

That the Teotihuacan empire prefigured that of the Aztecs is vividly attested at the site of Los Horcones, Chiapas, Mexico, studied by Claudia García-Des Lauriers of California State Polytechnic, Pomona. Situated near a spectacular hill, the city lies on the very edge of the great chocolate-producing area known to the Aztecs as the Xoconochco. The southern part of Los Horcones is a dead ringer for the complex composed of the Pyramid of the Moon and the Avenue of the Dead at Teotihuacan, and artifacts and monuments point to a direct Teotihuacan presence in the region. It is hard to believe that the Aztecs were not the imitators here, and that Teotihuacan was the first to interest itself in the cacao plantations and trade routes of the region. The contact did not stop there, but extended to what may be a Teotihuacan colony at Montana, Guatemala. This settlement, surrounded by others like it within a 3 mile (5 km) radius, is endowed with magnificent incense burners, portrait figurines, and an enigmatic square object known to specialists as candeleros or “candle holders,” though their function is not known. And Montana was not alone. In 1969 tractors plowing the fields in the Tiquisate region of the Pacific coastal plain of Guatemala, an area located southwest of Lake Atitlan that is covered with ancient (and untested) mounds, unearthed rich tombs and caches containing a total of over 1,000 ceramic objects. These have been examined by Nicholas Hellmuth of the Foundation for Latin American Archaeological Research; the collection consists of elaborate two-piece censers (according to Karl Taube symbolizing the souls of dead warriors), slab-legged tripod cylinders, hollow mold-made figures, and other objects, all in Teotihuacan style. Numerous finds of fired clay molds suggest that these were mass-produced from Teotihuacan prototypes by military-merchant groups intruding from central Mexico during the last half of the Early Classic.

 

Contacts must have been intense and conducted at the highest levels. Taube has detected Maya-style ceramics at Teotihuacan, some made locally, perhaps in an ethnic enclave at the city. Legible Maya glyphs from murals in the Tetitla apartment compound at Teotihuacan attest to royal names and rituals of god-impersonation. Very likely, these refer not to mere craftsmen brought from the Maya region, but to dynastic elites. Yet the movement of these people must have been complex. Under the immense Pyramid of the Moon, Saburo Sugiyama and colleagues discovered a burial with three bodies, dating to AD 350–400, accompanied by carved jades and a seated, Maya-like figure of greenstone. The positioning of this figure and the bodies nearby, all buried upright with crossed legs, resembles patterns in tombs at Kaminaljuyu in Highland Guatemala; the date, too, is close to a period of marked contact between Tikal and Teotihuacan-related people. Bone chemistry suggests that at least one of the occupants of the tomb came from the Maya region, but spent much of his life at this important Mexican city.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lopess]

 

19 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

 Legible Maya glyphs from murals in the Tetitla apartment compound at Teotihuacan attest to royal names and rituals of god-impersonation. Very likely, these refer not to mere craftsmen brought from the Maya region, but to dynastic elites. 

This is a very good thing, will we have more names for heroes even if semi-mythical? I saw some articles considering that the Teotihuacanos were actually a kind of "oligarchy" of perhaps four "dynasties" from which they shared military and religious power. this would explain for example the lack of monuments for a specific king.

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

16 January 378 C.E., a stranger arrived in Tikal, a large Maya city in what is now northern Guatemala. His name was Sihyaj K’ahk’ (SEE-yah Kak), or Fire is Born, and he was likely a mighty warrior from a distant land. Many archaeologists think he hailed from Teotihuacan, a metropolis of 100,000 people about 1000 kilometers northwest of Tikal, near today’s Mexico City. And he may have come with an army.

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The stone Maya monuments that record Sihyaj K’ahk’s arrival don’t say why he came or how he was received by Chak Tok Ich’aak, or Jaguar Paw, the long-reigning king of Tikal. But the day Sihyaj K’ahk’ marched into the city was the day Jaguar Paw died.

The engravings suggest Sihyaj K’ahk’ had been sent by a powerful foreign ruler called Spearthrower Owl. Within 2 years, Spearthrower Owl’s young son was crowned the new king of Tikal. In portraits carved on stone monuments there, the new king, named Yax Nuun Ayiin, holds an atlatl, a spearthrower used by Teotihuacan warriors, and wears a Teotihuacan-style headdress adorned with tassels. Some images of him and his father on monuments at Tikal are even carved in the flat, geometric style of Teotihuacan art, distinct from the intricate, naturalistic portraits of the Maya. Under the exotic new king and his descendants, Tikal became one of the most powerful cities in the Maya region.

Archaeologists have known the outline of those events for decades, but have long debated their meaning. Now, new evidence from both Teotihuacan and the Maya region has brought the relationship between those two great cultures back into the spotlight—and hints it may have been more contentious than most researchers had thought.

 

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Evidence from Maya writing and art suggests Teotihuacan conquered Tikal outright, adding it to what some archaeologists see as a sweeping empire that may have included several Maya cities. Defaced art in Teotihuacan suggests that about the time Tikal fell under its sway, Teotihuacan may have turned against Maya expatriates who had lived there peacefully for decades

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But doubts about that narrative persist, underlining the challenge of interpreting the archaeological traces of empires that fell short of complete domination. Some researchers say the events of 378 may have been a more limited case of palace intrigue, with the nobles of one powerful region elbowing their way into the politics of another. Archaeologists might even be falling for ancient propaganda: Sihyaj K’ahk’ and his army may have been local Maya usurpers who appropriated the symbolism of faraway Teotihuacan. Either way, archaeologists say they are glimpsing a political and cultural collision that helped spark the flourishing of Tikal in the centuries to come.

“It’s a thrilling time to be working in this area,” says Stephen Houston, an archaeologist at Brown University. “We’re getting astounding new finds that amplify what had just been a sketched story before.”

MAYA TRAVELERS visiting Teotihuacan during the fourth century would have encountered a city like no other they had ever seen. Three enormous pyramids loomed over the main street, now known as the Avenue of the Dead, their shapes reflecting snow-capped volcanoes visible in the distance. An orderly grid of roads extended from the avenue, and the city’s 100,000 residents—far more than in even the largest Maya cities of the time—lived in comfortable, standardized apartment complexes. Economic inequality was strikingly low. Depictions of warriors in Teotihuacan’s art, as well as human sacrifices entombed in military regalia, spoke of the city’s military might. Merchants from far-flung places such as Oaxaca to the southeast and the Gulf Coast brought goods for Teotihuacan’s markets, and pilgrims flocked to the city for religious ceremonies.

Some of those foreigners settled here and set up ethnic enclaves that archaeologists can identify from their foreign household goods and burial practices. “Teotihuacan was a great urban center, almost like Los Angeles or New York City. People from all over Mesoamerica were there,” says Karl Taube, an archaeologist at the University of California (UC), Riverside.

Teotihuacanos were likely just as fascinated by the Maya area, about 1000 kilometers away in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. It lay as far to the east as one could get in Mesoamerica, linking it to the mythologically potent rising Sun. Although the cultures shared staples such as maize, the luxury goods prized in Teotihuacan, such as jade, cacao, and brightly colored quetzal feathers, all came from the tropical jungles of the Maya lowlands. “It was a source of wealth and abundance,” Taube says. When seen from the chilly, high-altitude plain of Teotihuacan, the lush Maya area would have looked like a paradise replete with elegance and luxury.

Diplomacy and trade with the Maya could be tricky, however, because the Maya area was politically fragmented. It was dotted with largely independent city-states knitted together by shared religion and culture, similar to ancient Greece. The most powerful, such as Tikal and its nearby rival Calakmul, commanded the loyalty of smaller cities. But alliances shifted constantly, and no Maya king ever managed to politically unite the entire 390,000-square-kilometer region. Teotihuacan likely had distinct and ever-changing relationships with different Maya cities

 

 

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Their interactions left plenty of traces, in exchanges of art, ceramics, and cultural influences. Radiocarbon dating, as well as the exact dates the Maya recorded on their monuments, show definitively that the cultures existed at the same time. Their interactions were most intense in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. (see timeline above), the time of the late Roman Empire and part of what archaeologists in Mesoamerica call the Early Classic period. What archaeologists disagree on, often vehemently, is whether that relationship was peaceful and reciprocal or was based on violence and domination.

ON A SUNNY SUMMER morning here, Nawa Sugiyama, an archaeologist at UC Riverside, ducks into a tunnel her team has dug under what was once an impressive pyramid. Just off the Avenue of the Dead and between the imposing Sun and Moon pyramids, the structure sits in what is now called the Plaza of the Columns. (Confusingly, it has no columns and consists of several interconnected plazas and large pyramids.) Crouching under the tunnel’s low ceiling, Sugiyama inspects dozens of pieces of broken ceramics painstakingly excavated by her students and the project’s workers.

A mix of Maya and Teotihuacan styles, the shards testify not to violence, but to celebration: After the ceramics were broken, they were ceremonially sprinkled into a pit in a type of offering commonly made at the end of a feast in ancient Mesoamerica. The students and workers have excavated more than 10,000 ceramic pieces from this single spot, and this season they uncovered an average of 250 a day. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Sugiyama says. “We’re a little worried that it will never end.”

Sugiyama and her team think Teotihuacanos and Maya guests mingled at that ancient feast, perhaps to commemorate completing the pyramid. Most of the ceramic pieces represent fancy servingware, like the fine china people today might bring out for guests. According to radiocarbon dating of burned food scraps, including rabbit bones, maize, and yucca from the tropical Maya region, the feast took place between 300 and 350 C.E.

Across the plaza from the pyramid, Sugiyama and her collaborators have uncovered a plush compound of buildings once decorated with elaborate Maya murals painted in vivid hues, such as blues and greens, not often seen in Teotihuacan art. Perhaps the Maya people who lived in the Plaza of the Columns were high-status diplomats or members of noble families sent to the capital, like the European nobles who lived or grew up in foreign courts to strengthen alliances and facilitate royal marriages, says David Carballo, an archaeologist at Boston University.

“They’re practicing their own customs, which speaks to a peaceful coexistence with the rest of Teotihuacan society,” says Verónica Ortega, an archaeologist at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and a co-director with Sugiyama of the Plaza of the Columns project.

But several decades after the feast, something changed. When the team found the elegant murals, they were no longer attached to the compound’s walls, as much of Teotihuacan’s art still is. The murals had been smashed to pieces and deeply buried—“absolutely obliterated,” Sugiyama says. Faces were cut and scratched off until they were unidentifiable. “It was an act of intentional destruction,” Sugiyama says. According to radiocarbon dating of organic matter covering the remains of the murals, the destruction took place between 350 and 400 C.E.

Although Sugiyama and Ortega work together, they interpret the mural destruction differently. Ortega sees it as a ritual that Teotihuacanos and Maya people both participated in—similar to the offering of broken ceramics made at the end of the feast. But Sugiyama points out that scratching out individual faces is an unusual act of targeted erasure that the Maya residents would have been unlikely to embrace.

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WHEN SIHYAJ K’AHK’ arrived in Tikal, he would have found a smaller, less centralized city than Teotihuacan. Royal palaces and temples perched on hilltops still surrounded by jungle below. Roads cut through the trees, connecting clusters of buildings used by the elite and serving as routes for commoners to follow from their scattered farms to markets and ceremonies in the city center. Tall stone monuments covered in dense writing documented key events in Tikal’s history, such as the reigns of kings. Only the city’s richest and most powerful people could have read those texts, however: Maya history was written by elites, for elites. (Teotihuacan’s script remains undeciphered, partly because researchers don’t know its language, whereas ancient Mayan writing is related to a few Mayan languages spoken today.)

In the early 1970s, epigrapher Tatiana Proskouriakoff became the first person in centuries to begin to piece together what happened in Tikal in 378. On the basis of an incomplete reading of the monuments recording the arrival of Sihyaj K’ahk’, she spoke of “the arrival of strangers” and proposed they were from central Mexico.

In 2000, David Stuart, an archaeologist and epigrapher at the University of Texas, Austin, offered a more complete understanding of those texts, and he is reanalyzing them now. Thanks to advances in deciphering Mayan script, he can read the glyphs carved into the monuments, including the names and relationships of Sihyaj K’ahk’, Jaguar Paw, and Spearthrower Owl. But the historical records raise more questions than they answer.

One especially hot question is whom, exactly, Sihyaj K’ahk’ was working for. He apparently was following the orders of Spearthrower Owl, described on the monuments as a foreign king who ruled a faraway land from 374 to 439 C.E. Spearthrower Owl’s name is written in a style that echoes Teotihuacan art, and a portrait of him at Tikal was carved in Teotihuacan’s unmistakable geometric style, Stuart says. Stuart thinks Spearthrower Owl was the king of Teotihuacan, possibly when the murals at the Plaza of the Columns were destroyed.

But many archaeologists think Teotihuacan had no king. No royal tomb or any depiction of a monarch has ever been found there. Although some researchers argue that only a strong monarch could have ruled such a grand and regimented city, others assert that the city was governed by a council or in some other cooperative way. Carballo points out that most Teotihuacan art focuses on people’s clothing and other accoutrements rather than individual features, a sign that the offices they held were more important than their individual identities. Images of birds of prey with atlatls—the key elements of the glyph the Maya used to write Spearthrower Owl’s name—show up around Teotihuacan for centuries, far longer than any single person could have ruled. “I think [the glyph] stands for an office, perhaps a military role of some sort in Teotihuacan” that many people could hold over time, Carballo says, rather than an individual monarch.

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e and many other archaeologists working in Teotihuacan resist the notion that Maya written history should trump evidence from Teotihuacan itself. Maya cities were ruled by kings, and the Maya expectation of monarchy may have led them to misunderstand Spearthrower Owl’s role, Carballo says. Perhaps Sihyaj K’ahk’ and the other invaders even promoted that misconception, says Michael Smith, an archaeologist at Arizona State University, Tempe. “Say you’re the spin doctor for Sihyaj K’ahk’, and you’re trying to convince these Maya kings that this guy is really something. What are you going to say? Are you going to say he’s from Teotihuacan, where people sort of ruled themselves? Or are you going to say, ‘This guy is sent by the king of the biggest city that anyone’s ever heard of’?”

Whoever sent Sihyaj K’ahk’, Francisco Estrada-Belli, an archaeologist at Tulane University, thinks he didn’t stop with Tikal. Estrada-Belli found murals at the city of Holmul, 35 kilometers east of Tikal, showing Teotihuacan warriors accompanying a new king during his ascension to the throne. The building they decorated was constructed to commemorate the first anniversary of Sihyaj K’ahk’s arrival in Tikal. Maya records imply that “within a few years, Sihyaj K’ahk’ had installed friendly kings at a number of important Maya cities,” Estrada-Belli says. “For many of them, this is the beginning of a new dynasty. It’s a major turning point.”

THE POSSIBILITY REMAINS, however, that Sihyaj K’ahk’ and Spearthrower Owl weren’t from Teotihuacan at all and were simply invoking that great city to impress a Maya audience. Maya mythology and religion held foreign goods in high esteem, and Teotihuacan was the most prestigious faraway place in Mesoamerica. Little evidence exists of Teotihuacanos living at Tikal, notes Joyce Marcus, an archaeologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “The simplest explanation is Tikal’s new king”—Spearthrower Owl’s son, Yax Nuun Ayiin—“was a Maya usurper who cloaked himself in prestigious foreign attire,” she says. “Wearing the trappings of highland Mexican warriors could communicate that the Maya leader had military prowess.”

“Conquest is exciting and easy to understand,” says Geoffrey Braswell, an archaeologist at UC San Diego. But he, too, thinks the events at Tikal reflect a conflict between Maya groups, one of which adopted the symbols of a foreign power to strengthen their rebellion. Elite groups have practiced similar cultural emulation throughout history, he says. Chinese porcelain became a status symbol in 17th and 18th century Europe, and upper-class Russians spoke French to each other in the 19th century, for example. “It’s really quite common,” Braswell says.

Isotopic evidence published in 2005 and 2010 seems to be on Marcus and Braswell’s side. Archaeologists excavated the tombs of Yax Nuun Ayiin at Tikal and K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, the founder of a new dynasty at Copán, a Maya city in Honduras. That Copán monarch is depicted wearing Teotihuacan-style dress, including unmistakable “goggles” over his eyes that evoke the rain god of central Mexico. Inscriptions say he was a foreign king and came to Teotihuacan for a ceremony that invested him with the right to rule before assuming Copán’s throne. If any Maya kings came from Teotihuacan, it would be those two, Braswell says...

Edwin Román Ramírez is looking. An archaeologist at the Foundation for Maya Cultural and Natural Heritage (PACUNAM), he’s leading new excavations at Tikal and searching for an ethnic enclave of Teotihuacanos. He expects to announce his first results at a symposium in Guatemala City this summer. He thinks Teotihuacan did conquer Tikal and that soldiers or others from Teotihuacan may have lived there. But, he says, “Their intention, I think, was never to turn [the Maya] into Teotihuacanos.” Rather, Tikal likely represented a strategic economic outpost in the Maya region for Teotihuacan.

In fact, any Teotihuacan empire may have relied more on soft power than on overt colonization. The lives of Maya commoners in and around Tikal don’t seem to change much after Sihyaj K’ahk’s arrival, says Bárbara Arroyo, an archaeologist at Francisco Marroquín University, leading her to question the conquest scenario. Compare that situation with that of the Roman Empire from 27 B.C.E. to 476 C.E. Its imperial footprint is unmistakable, as it posted armies all over Europe, encouraged the adoption of a state religion, remodeled cities, and installed governors who answered directly to Rome.

“Empire is a spectrum,” says Sue Alcock, a University of Michigan archaeologist who studies the Greek provinces of the Roman Empire. “It can be very hostile—I come in, I burn your temples, I take your women, I erase you from the earth.” Or it can be gentler—“the elites [of both cultures] getting together and reconfiguring the social system.”

Teotihuacan definitely controlled a small empire in central Mexico, Smith says. In the Mexican state of Morelos, 85 kilometers south of the city, for example, he found towns full of Teotihuacan-style ceramics and obsidian from the city’s heyday. But farther afield, Teotihuacan’s empire is a patchwork. It is “strategic about the places it’s controlling,” says Claudia García-Des Lauriers, an archaeologist at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She has mapped and excavated the site of Los Horcones on the coast of the Mexican state of Chiapas, where she says the main pyramid and plaza, used from about 400 to 600 C.E., resemble smaller versions of Teotihuacan’s famous Pyramid of the Moon. Located in a narrow mountain pass through which trade passed, Los Horcones would have given Teotihuacan control of the flow of cacao and quetzal feathers from the lush Chiapas coast.

Teotihuacan’s influence extended as far as the Pacific coast of Guatemala, more than 1000 kilometers from the city. At sites there, archaeologists uncovered Teotihuacanstyle household goods, including hundreds of incense burners used for domestic religious rituals, says Oswaldo Chinchilla, an archaeologist at Yale University. He and many other archaeologists think a colony of Teotihuacanos lived in Escuintla, perhaps commanding important land and sea trade routes. With their arrival, “The whole outlook of the sites and their culture changed,” he says

Teotihuacan was once a bustling, cosmopolitan metropolis, the center of an empire whose reach may have extended 1000 kilometers away to the Maya region.

 

MAX SHEN/GETTY IMAGES

‘Astounding new finds’ suggest ancient empire may be hiding in plain sight

By Lizzie WadeFeb. 27, 2020 , 1:30 PM

SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO—On 16 January 378 C.E., a stranger arrived in Tikal, a large Maya city in what is now northern Guatemala. His name was Sihyaj K’ahk’ (SEE-yah Kak), or Fire is Born, and he was likely a mighty warrior from a distant land. Many archaeologists think he hailed from Teotihuacan, a metropolis of 100,000 people about 1000 kilometers northwest of Tikal, near today’s Mexico City. And he may have come with an army.

The stone Maya monuments that record Sihyaj K’ahk’s arrival don’t say why he came or how he was received by Chak Tok Ich’aak, or Jaguar Paw, the long-reigning king of Tikal. But the day Sihyaj K’ahk’ marched into the city was the day Jaguar Paw died.

The engravings suggest Sihyaj K’ahk’ had been sent by a powerful foreign ruler called Spearthrower Owl. Within 2 years, Spearthrower Owl’s young son was crowned the new king of Tikal. In portraits carved on stone monuments there, the new king, named Yax Nuun Ayiin, holds an atlatl, a spearthrower used by Teotihuacan warriors, and wears a Teotihuacan-style headdress adorned with tassels. Some images of him and his father on monuments at Tikal are even carved in the flat, geometric style of Teotihuacan art, distinct from the intricate, naturalistic portraits of the Maya. Under the exotic new king and his descendants, Tikal became one of the most powerful cities in the Maya region.

Archaeologists have known the outline of those events for decades, but have long debated their meaning. Now, new evidence from both Teotihuacan and the Maya region has brought the relationship between those two great cultures back into the spotlight—and hints it may have been more contentious than most researchers had thought.

Evidence from Maya writing and art suggests Teotihuacan conquered Tikal outright, adding it to what some archaeologists see as a sweeping empire that may have included several Maya cities. Defaced art in Teotihuacan suggests that about the time Tikal fell under its sway, Teotihuacan may have turned against Maya expatriates who had lived there peacefully for decades.

Spheres of influence

In the fourth century C.E., Teotihuacan controlled a small empire in central Mexico, perhaps with outposts farther south. It traded with the independent city-states of the Maya region, and may have conquered several.

MEXICOOaxacaChiapasGulf ofMexicoCaribbeanSeaBELIZEPacific OceanGuatemalaHondurasTikalCopánCalakmulHolmulTeotihuacanMexico CityGuatemala CityTegucigalpaTeotihuacan empireMaya areaEscuintla departmentArchaeological sitesModern urban areasLos Horcones

X. LIU/SCIENCE

But doubts about that narrative persist, underlining the challenge of interpreting the archaeological traces of empires that fell short of complete domination. Some researchers say the events of 378 may have been a more limited case of palace intrigue, with the nobles of one powerful region elbowing their way into the politics of another. Archaeologists might even be falling for ancient propaganda: Sihyaj K’ahk’ and his army may have been local Maya usurpers who appropriated the symbolism of faraway Teotihuacan. Either way, archaeologists say they are glimpsing a political and cultural collision that helped spark the flourishing of Tikal in the centuries to come.

“It’s a thrilling time to be working in this area,” says Stephen Houston, an archaeologist at Brown University. “We’re getting astounding new finds that amplify what had just been a sketched story before.”

MAYA TRAVELERS visiting Teotihuacan during the fourth century would have encountered a city like no other they had ever seen. Three enormous pyramids loomed over the main street, now known as the Avenue of the Dead, their shapes reflecting snow-capped volcanoes visible in the distance. An orderly grid of roads extended from the avenue, and the city’s 100,000 residents—far more than in even the largest Maya cities of the time—lived in comfortable, standardized apartment complexes. Economic inequality was strikingly low. Depictions of warriors in Teotihuacan’s art, as well as human sacrifices entombed in military regalia, spoke of the city’s military might. Merchants from far-flung places such as Oaxaca to the southeast and the Gulf Coast brought goods for Teotihuacan’s markets, and pilgrims flocked to the city for religious ceremonies.

Some of those foreigners settled here and set up ethnic enclaves that archaeologists can identify from their foreign household goods and burial practices. “Teotihuacan was a great urban center, almost like Los Angeles or New York City. People from all over Mesoamerica were there,” says Karl Taube, an archaeologist at the University of California (UC), Riverside.

Teotihuacanos were likely just as fascinated by the Maya area, about 1000 kilometers away in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. It lay as far to the east as one could get in Mesoamerica, linking it to the mythologically potent rising Sun. Although the cultures shared staples such as maize, the luxury goods prized in Teotihuacan, such as jade, cacao, and brightly colored quetzal feathers, all came from the tropical jungles of the Maya lowlands. “It was a source of wealth and abundance,” Taube says. When seen from the chilly, high-altitude plain of Teotihuacan, the lush Maya area would have looked like a paradise replete with elegance and luxury.

Diplomacy and trade with the Maya could be tricky, however, because the Maya area was politically fragmented. It was dotted with largely independent city-states knitted together by shared religion and culture, similar to ancient Greece. The most powerful, such as Tikal and its nearby rival Calakmul, commanded the loyalty of smaller cities. But alliances shifted constantly, and no Maya king ever managed to politically unite the entire 390,000-square-kilometer region. Teotihuacan likely had distinct and ever-changing relationships with different Maya cities.

300310320330340350360370380390400410420430440450Jaguar PawSihyaj K’ahk’Spearthrower OwlYax Nuun AyiinK’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’TeotihuacanMaya300–350300–35013 September 37916 January 378Two views of history374–4396 September 426350–400Maya muralsare destroyedand buried.K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’becomes king of Copánand reigns until 437.Spearthrower Owl reigns asking of Teotihuacan, accordingto Maya inscriptions.Sihyaj K’ahk’ arrivesin Tikal. King JaguarPaw dies.Yax Nuun Ayiin,Spearthrower Owl’s son,ascends the throne in Tikal.Burial ofmistreatedbodiesPeople fromTeotihuacan and theMaya region feasttogether at the Plazaof the Columns.(radiocarbon ranges)(name glyph)(portrait)(name glyph)(name glyph)(name glyph)Maya written history records a possible conquest of Tikal by Teotihuacan, including precise datesand the names and some portraits of major players. But only radiocarbon date ranges areknown for events in Teotihuacan, leaving questions about how key incidents in each region are related.(written dates)

(GRAPHIC) N. DESAI/SCIENCE; (ILLUSTRATIONS, L TO R) MESOWEB.COM/S. MARTIN ET AL., CHRONICLE OF THE MAYA KINGS AND QUEENS … (2); J. P. LAPORTE/H. G. CAPISTRÍN, “BÚHOS, LANZADARDOS Y ANTEOJERAS … ”; J. MONTGOMERY/FND. FOR ADVANCEMENT OF MESOAMERICAN STUDIES

Their interactions left plenty of traces, in exchanges of art, ceramics, and cultural influences. Radiocarbon dating, as well as the exact dates the Maya recorded on their monuments, show definitively that the cultures existed at the same time. Their interactions were most intense in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. (see timeline above), the time of the late Roman Empire and part of what archaeologists in Mesoamerica call the Early Classic period. What archaeologists disagree on, often vehemently, is whether that relationship was peaceful and reciprocal or was based on violence and domination.

ON A SUNNY SUMMER morning here, Nawa Sugiyama, an archaeologist at UC Riverside, ducks into a tunnel her team has dug under what was once an impressive pyramid. Just off the Avenue of the Dead and between the imposing Sun and Moon pyramids, the structure sits in what is now called the Plaza of the Columns. (Confusingly, it has no columns and consists of several interconnected plazas and large pyramids.) Crouching under the tunnel’s low ceiling, Sugiyama inspects dozens of pieces of broken ceramics painstakingly excavated by her students and the project’s workers.

A mix of Maya and Teotihuacan styles, the shards testify not to violence, but to celebration: After the ceramics were broken, they were ceremonially sprinkled into a pit in a type of offering commonly made at the end of a feast in ancient Mesoamerica. The students and workers have excavated more than 10,000 ceramic pieces from this single spot, and this season they uncovered an average of 250 a day. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Sugiyama says. “We’re a little worried that it will never end.”

Sugiyama and her team think Teotihuacanos and Maya guests mingled at that ancient feast, perhaps to commemorate completing the pyramid. Most of the ceramic pieces represent fancy servingware, like the fine china people today might bring out for guests. According to radiocarbon dating of burned food scraps, including rabbit bones, maize, and yucca from the tropical Maya region, the feast took place between 300 and 350 C.E.

Across the plaza from the pyramid, Sugiyama and her collaborators have uncovered a plush compound of buildings once decorated with elaborate Maya murals painted in vivid hues, such as blues and greens, not often seen in Teotihuacan art. Perhaps the Maya people who lived in the Plaza of the Columns were high-status diplomats or members of noble families sent to the capital, like the European nobles who lived or grew up in foreign courts to strengthen alliances and facilitate royal marriages, says David Carballo, an archaeologist at Boston University.

“They’re practicing their own customs, which speaks to a peaceful coexistence with the rest of Teotihuacan society,” says Verónica Ortega, an archaeologist at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and a co-director with Sugiyama of the Plaza of the Columns project.

But several decades after the feast, something changed. When the team found the elegant murals, they were no longer attached to the compound’s walls, as much of Teotihuacan’s art still is. The murals had been smashed to pieces and deeply buried—“absolutely obliterated,” Sugiyama says. Faces were cut and scratched off until they were unidentifiable. “It was an act of intentional destruction,” Sugiyama says. According to radiocarbon dating of organic matter covering the remains of the murals, the destruction took place between 350 and 400 C.E.

Although Sugiyama and Ortega work together, they interpret the mural destruction differently. Ortega sees it as a ritual that Teotihuacanos and Maya people both participated in—similar to the offering of broken ceramics made at the end of the feast. But Sugiyama points out that scratching out individual faces is an unusual act of targeted erasure that the Maya residents would have been unlikely to embrace.

Ceramics decorated with naturalistic Maya art (left) were used in a feast at Teotihuacan. In Tikal, a portrait of Spearthrower Owl (right), a possible leader of Teotihuacan, was carved on a monument, in Teotihuacan’s geometric style.

 

(LEFT TO RIGHT): CORTESÍA/NOTIMEX/NEWSCOM; KENNETH GARRETT

Sugiyama and Ortega’s team also found a nearby pit filled with human skeletons that raises darker questions. The bodies lie in pieces, which is not typical of other burials or sacrifices here. The bone pit could have been simply a workshop for making bone tools—or the remains of a massacre, Sugiyama says. Some skulls have flat backs and slightly pointed tops, and some teeth have holes for jewelry—signs of cranial shaping and adornment styles practiced by the Maya but uncommon in Teotihuacan. Archaeologists will need to study the dietary isotopes and perhaps DNA from the bones to be sure they belonged to Maya people. Researchers would also like to resolve another mystery: Preliminary dating suggests the bones were dumped in the pit about the time of the feast, when relations with the Maya were apparently peaceful.

The radiocarbon dates for the mural destruction tell a clearer story, however. They place it between 350 and 400—within about 25 years of the arrival of Sihyaj K’ahk’ in Tikal in 378. “The fact that [the Teotihuacanos] absolutely destroy the murals and then soon after go attack places in the Maya lowlands suggests to me that diplomatic relations had turned sour for some reason,” Carballo says. “Turbulent times are coming,” Sugiyama agrees.

WHEN SIHYAJ K’AHK’ arrived in Tikal, he would have found a smaller, less centralized city than Teotihuacan. Royal palaces and temples perched on hilltops still surrounded by jungle below. Roads cut through the trees, connecting clusters of buildings used by the elite and serving as routes for commoners to follow from their scattered farms to markets and ceremonies in the city center. Tall stone monuments covered in dense writing documented key events in Tikal’s history, such as the reigns of kings. Only the city’s richest and most powerful people could have read those texts, however: Maya history was written by elites, for elites. (Teotihuacan’s script remains undeciphered, partly because researchers don’t know its language, whereas ancient Mayan writing is related to a few Mayan languages spoken today.)

In the early 1970s, epigrapher Tatiana Proskouriakoff became the first person in centuries to begin to piece together what happened in Tikal in 378. On the basis of an incomplete reading of the monuments recording the arrival of Sihyaj K’ahk’, she spoke of “the arrival of strangers” and proposed they were from central Mexico.

In 2000, David Stuart, an archaeologist and epigrapher at the University of Texas, Austin, offered a more complete understanding of those texts, and he is reanalyzing them now. Thanks to advances in deciphering Mayan script, he can read the glyphs carved into the monuments, including the names and relationships of Sihyaj K’ahk’, Jaguar Paw, and Spearthrower Owl. But the historical records raise more questions than they answer.

One especially hot question is whom, exactly, Sihyaj K’ahk’ was working for. He apparently was following the orders of Spearthrower Owl, described on the monuments as a foreign king who ruled a faraway land from 374 to 439 C.E. Spearthrower Owl’s name is written in a style that echoes Teotihuacan art, and a portrait of him at Tikal was carved in Teotihuacan’s unmistakable geometric style, Stuart says. Stuart thinks Spearthrower Owl was the king of Teotihuacan, possibly when the murals at the Plaza of the Columns were destroyed.

But many archaeologists think Teotihuacan had no king. No royal tomb or any depiction of a monarch has ever been found there. Although some researchers argue that only a strong monarch could have ruled such a grand and regimented city, others assert that the city was governed by a council or in some other cooperative way. Carballo points out that most Teotihuacan art focuses on people’s clothing and other accoutrements rather than individual features, a sign that the offices they held were more important than their individual identities. Images of birds of prey with atlatls—the key elements of the glyph the Maya used to write Spearthrower Owl’s name—show up around Teotihuacan for centuries, far longer than any single person could have ruled. “I think [the glyph] stands for an office, perhaps a military role of some sort in Teotihuacan” that many people could hold over time, Carballo says, rather than an individual monarch.

The Maya city of Tikal rose to the height of its power and prominence after what may have been a conquest by Teotihuacan in 378 C.E.

 

W. E. GARRETT/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION

He and many other archaeologists working in Teotihuacan resist the notion that Maya written history should trump evidence from Teotihuacan itself. Maya cities were ruled by kings, and the Maya expectation of monarchy may have led them to misunderstand Spearthrower Owl’s role, Carballo says. Perhaps Sihyaj K’ahk’ and the other invaders even promoted that misconception, says Michael Smith, an archaeologist at Arizona State University, Tempe. “Say you’re the spin doctor for Sihyaj K’ahk’, and you’re trying to convince these Maya kings that this guy is really something. What are you going to say? Are you going to say he’s from Teotihuacan, where people sort of ruled themselves? Or are you going to say, ‘This guy is sent by the king of the biggest city that anyone’s ever heard of’?”

Whoever sent Sihyaj K’ahk’, Francisco Estrada-Belli, an archaeologist at Tulane University, thinks he didn’t stop with Tikal. Estrada-Belli found murals at the city of Holmul, 35 kilometers east of Tikal, showing Teotihuacan warriors accompanying a new king during his ascension to the throne. The building they decorated was constructed to commemorate the first anniversary of Sihyaj K’ahk’s arrival in Tikal. Maya records imply that “within a few years, Sihyaj K’ahk’ had installed friendly kings at a number of important Maya cities,” Estrada-Belli says. “For many of them, this is the beginning of a new dynasty. It’s a major turning point.”

THE POSSIBILITY REMAINS, however, that Sihyaj K’ahk’ and Spearthrower Owl weren’t from Teotihuacan at all and were simply invoking that great city to impress a Maya audience. Maya mythology and religion held foreign goods in high esteem, and Teotihuacan was the most prestigious faraway place in Mesoamerica. Little evidence exists of Teotihuacanos living at Tikal, notes Joyce Marcus, an archaeologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “The simplest explanation is Tikal’s new king”—Spearthrower Owl’s son, Yax Nuun Ayiin—“was a Maya usurper who cloaked himself in prestigious foreign attire,” she says. “Wearing the trappings of highland Mexican warriors could communicate that the Maya leader had military prowess.”

“Conquest is exciting and easy to understand,” says Geoffrey Braswell, an archaeologist at UC San Diego. But he, too, thinks the events at Tikal reflect a conflict between Maya groups, one of which adopted the symbols of a foreign power to strengthen their rebellion. Elite groups have practiced similar cultural emulation throughout history, he says. Chinese porcelain became a status symbol in 17th and 18th century Europe, and upper-class Russians spoke French to each other in the 19th century, for example. “It’s really quite common,” Braswell says.

Isotopic evidence published in 2005 and 2010 seems to be on Marcus and Braswell’s side. Archaeologists excavated the tombs of Yax Nuun Ayiin at Tikal and K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, the founder of a new dynasty at Copán, a Maya city in Honduras. That Copán monarch is depicted wearing Teotihuacan-style dress, including unmistakable “goggles” over his eyes that evoke the rain god of central Mexico. Inscriptions say he was a foreign king and came to Teotihuacan for a ceremony that invested him with the right to rule before assuming Copán’s throne. If any Maya kings came from Teotihuacan, it would be those two, Braswell says.

But analysis of the strontium isotopes preserved in his teeth showed that Yax Nuun Ayiin—whom inscriptions clearly name as Spearthrower Owl’s son—grew up around Tikal. Researchers couldn’t pinpoint the origins of K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, but in his case, too, the isotopes ruled out central Mexico. “Find us a body [in the Maya lowlands] that’s isotopically from Teotihuacan, with a spear in their hand,” Braswell says, and he’d be more inclined to think that Teotihuacan conquered Tikal.

A monument from Tikal known as El Marcador includes the name glyph of Spearthrower Owl in a rosette at the top.

 

KENNETH GARRETT

Edwin Román Ramírez is looking. An archaeologist at the Foundation for Maya Cultural and Natural Heritage (PACUNAM), he’s leading new excavations at Tikal and searching for an ethnic enclave of Teotihuacanos. He expects to announce his first results at a symposium in Guatemala City this summer. He thinks Teotihuacan did conquer Tikal and that soldiers or others from Teotihuacan may have lived there. But, he says, “Their intention, I think, was never to turn [the Maya] into Teotihuacanos.” Rather, Tikal likely represented a strategic economic outpost in the Maya region for Teotihuacan.

In fact, any Teotihuacan empire may have relied more on soft power than on overt colonization. The lives of Maya commoners in and around Tikal don’t seem to change much after Sihyaj K’ahk’s arrival, says Bárbara Arroyo, an archaeologist at Francisco Marroquín University, leading her to question the conquest scenario. Compare that situation with that of the Roman Empire from 27 B.C.E. to 476 C.E. Its imperial footprint is unmistakable, as it posted armies all over Europe, encouraged the adoption of a state religion, remodeled cities, and installed governors who answered directly to Rome.

“Empire is a spectrum,” says Sue Alcock, a University of Michigan archaeologist who studies the Greek provinces of the Roman Empire. “It can be very hostile—I come in, I burn your temples, I take your women, I erase you from the earth.” Or it can be gentler—“the elites [of both cultures] getting together and reconfiguring the social system.”

Teotihuacan definitely controlled a small empire in central Mexico, Smith says. In the Mexican state of Morelos, 85 kilometers south of the city, for example, he found towns full of Teotihuacan-style ceramics and obsidian from the city’s heyday. But farther afield, Teotihuacan’s empire is a patchwork. It is “strategic about the places it’s controlling,” says Claudia García-Des Lauriers, an archaeologist at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She has mapped and excavated the site of Los Horcones on the coast of the Mexican state of Chiapas, where she says the main pyramid and plaza, used from about 400 to 600 C.E., resemble smaller versions of Teotihuacan’s famous Pyramid of the Moon. Located in a narrow mountain pass through which trade passed, Los Horcones would have given Teotihuacan control of the flow of cacao and quetzal feathers from the lush Chiapas coast.

Teotihuacan’s influence extended as far as the Pacific coast of Guatemala, more than 1000 kilometers from the city. At sites there, archaeologists uncovered Teotihuacanstyle household goods, including hundreds of incense burners used for domestic religious rituals, says Oswaldo Chinchilla, an archaeologist at Yale University. He and many other archaeologists think a colony of Teotihuacanos lived in Escuintla, perhaps commanding important land and sea trade routes. With their arrival, “The whole outlook of the sites and their culture changed,” he says.

New clues about Teotihuacan’s reach might come from PACUNAM’s 2016 aerial survey of more than 2000 square kilometers in northern Guatemala, including the area around Tikal. LIDAR, a laser-based remote sensing technique, revealed tens of thousands of unknown archaeological features, including possible fortifications such as flattened hilltops with watchtowers. “It’s this feeling of an intensely guarded landscape,” Houston says. Excavations of some sites will begin in May, and he is hoping for clues about whether the fortifications were built by the Maya in response to a Teotihuacan threat, or by Teotihuacanos and their allies once they had taken over Tikal.

One thing is clear: Sihyaj K’ahk’s arrival changed the course of Tikal’s history. “Following that invasion, Tikal ascends to a new level of greatness,” says Thomas Garrison, an archaeologist at Ithaca College. As Tikal’s influence spreads, it leads to “the foundation of much of what we know as Classic Maya culture,” including a homogenization of written language, Román Ramírez says. “Even though they may have lost to Teotihuacan, Tikal is ultimately the big winner.”

In about 550 C.E., Teotihuacan collapsed, its downtown burned in what was perhaps a rebellion by its own citizens. But centuries later, Tikal’s kings still celebrated military victories by dressing as Teotihuacan warriors, Stuart says. Whatever happened in 378, its memory lingered far longer than Teotihuacan itself.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/astounding-new-finds-suggest-ancient-empire-may-be-hiding-plain-sight

[Lion.Kanzen]

The Warriors.

Quote

Teotihuacan was a powerful metropolis whose ruins can be seen just 50km north east of present day México City. This was the nucleus of a civilization that exercised an incomparable influence over the whole Central America. Its art and distinct architecture appear in all subsequent great cultures of the region and expanded throughout the Mayan territory, from northern Yucatan to the border zones of Honduras and the Pacific coast of Guatemala, passing trough the central Mexican territory. We still have doubts about the origins of this culture and their language, but some investigators think that there was an affiliation to the nahua people, probably Otomis, or maybe the city was constructed by the Olmecas-Xicalanca, a group of Mixtec speech.

With a theocratic based political structure, dominated by a priesthood elite and warring nobility (there is no evidence of individualistic power concentration, like on the figure of a king) it is most probable that Teotihuacan had a strong military potential, in order to ensure order and supremacy of the dominant civilization and its rulers.

The influence which Teotihuacan exercised among the Maya was multifaceted and full of cultural resonance, persisting long after the fall of the city. The capacity of Teotihuacan to directly influence the Maya history, besides the temporary sovereignty over conquered territories, indicates that this dominance was mostly political, though occasionally founded on the military power

Militaristic individuals populate the visual arts in large numbers, marching on painted walls near the city center and out in the more secluded apartment compounds. Likewise, warriors circle around the painted and stuccoed vases or boldly appear on the carved surfaces of Thin Orange ceramics, and in some statuettes. Thus both art and archaeology indicate the dominant role played by the military in Teotihuacan society.

One crucial element of Teotihuacan warrior was the ‘mirror’ worn on his back. Called a tezcacuitlapilli by the later Mexica, the mirror consisted of a small stone disk to which pieces of iron pyrite were attached in a mosaic. Visual depictions indicate that feathers commonly ringed these mirrors. An additional decorative touch might include a knot securing a swath of feathers to the mirror.

Many of the other costume elements of the warriors are not restricted to the military. Brilliant sprays of feathers fell from the various headdresses and trailed behind them. They wore sandals, shell or bread necklaces, large earflares and short loincloth skirts; all clothing of a typical – if elite – Teotihuacan male. The main warring emblems tucked amongst this otherwise ordinary clothing were year signs, owl pectorals, and the ultimate warrior costume accessory: circular Tlaloc goggles. These usually rang the human eye, but were sometimes shoved up on the forehead in a style similar to modern goggle wearing

A final characteristic of the Teotihuacan military apparel is nevertheless the most interesting, because it opens a window on the conceptual underpinnings of warfare itself and onto the underlying social organization. Teotihuacan warriors did not enter battle solely with protective armaments of the martial sort: they wore spiritual armaments as well. These features, found in the city’s military imagery are the incorporation of animal attributes in the costume of most warriors. That’s why the list includes nahualli warriors (a nahuatl term, that in this case means an animal co-essence; this designates an entity, relating to an ancient and widspread mesoamerican belief, in which one part of the human soul manifests itself as a sort of animal) that can be viewed as a precursor of the military orders latter developed by other Mesoamericans cultures, like the Toltecas or the later Mexicas.

Although a shamanic rationale may have underlined the existence of animal warriors at Teotihuacan, the real strength of the costumes was their ability to foster collective identities. The animal costumes of Teotihuacan do not seem to represent an individual as much they designate groups of warriors who wore the same costume and shared an animal companion. A vessel from the site of Las Colinas near Teotihuacan confirms the existence of these groups: on the bowl each warrior in the procession walks behind the symbol of is military order. The depicted heraldry includes such entities as a bird, a canine, a feathered serpent and a tassel headdress, the later indicating that animals were not the only military emblems. In the white patio of Atetelco there can be seen images of eagle and coyote warriors and there are also representations of jaguar warriors in the murals of Teotihuacan.

The multiethnic warrior units represent the most warlike soldiers, foreigners willing to join the ranks because of direct allegiances or just as a result of politic and cultural affinities. These would strengthen an army mainly composed of farmers and therefore largely seasonal or dependant on conscripts

As for the different implements of war that are represented in Teotihuacan the atlatl propeller is the most recurring, including all other offensive and defensive devices. Anyway from a tactical perspective it will be illogical to think that this was the sole weapon used by the Teotihuacanos. Some investigators agree about the existence of other kinds of weapons like contusing maces, as suggested by the discovery of stone arums with a hole in the center, where a wooden handle would fit; such maces would be straight without external protuberances. On the other hand curved sticks, largely used in the early Post Classic (900-1200 AD) can be seen in the white patio of Atetelco-Portico 3, where several dressed characters carry these contusing implements.

 In reality there are no direct examples of weapons with razor parts such as macuahitl like swords, if we exclude some representations in the so called Zone II. There a series of vertical lines present along the whole edges to form triangular motifs that can be recognized as macanas, namely because this pattern relates to another mural of the same group identified as a military subject. It is very well attested that the Teotihuacanos where experts in obsidian cutting of and in the manufacture of sharp utilities such as prismatic razors, which were fundamental elements in the assembling of those weapons. One figure in stela 5 of the Maya City of Uaxactún – representing a figure clearly in Teotihuacan dress – also carries a weapon much like a macuahuitl.

A similar reasoning would apply to other piercing tools such as spears, for which there are no mural representations. It is likely that this type of weapons were known because several found objects made of obsidian, silex and stone, have a shape and length compatible with spear heads. One ceramic plaque found near the Ciudadela shows a character unmistakably armed with a spear.

For defence, square or rectangular shields were used, flexible or rigid, similar to those found among the Maya.

In its ensemble the city of Teotihuacan and the culture of its habitants constituted an unmatched phenomenon. It was the most complex and populated urban centre of the Classical period. Its splendour endured for more than 500 years, before undergoing devastating decadency by the VII century.

 Main references:

Spoiler

 

Arzave, Alfonso A. Garduño. De las armas ofensivas en el arte y la arqueología de Teotihuacán; La pintura mural prehispánica en México num. 24-25, 2006

Coe, Michael D. O México; Editorial Verbo, 1970

Headrick, Annabeth. The Teotihuacan Trinity; University of Texas Press, 2007

Martin, Simon. La gran potencia occidental: Los Mayas y Teotihuacan; Konemann, 2006

Moctezuma, Eduardo Matos. El milenio Teotihuacano; Conaculta, 200

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

the googles are important.

woman costume.

 

priest of fire.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, Lopess said:

 

This is a very good thing, will we have more names for heroes even if semi-mythical? I saw some articles considering that the Teotihuacanos were actually a kind of "oligarchy" of perhaps four "dynasties" from which they shared military and religious power. this would explain for example the lack of monuments for a specific king.

this of Mythyc names also can be useful for Zapotecs. they have same names over centuries.

[Lopess]

Architecture

Edited March 14, 2021 by Lopess

[Lopess]

Edited March 14, 2021 by Lopess

[Lopess]

Warriors

[Lion.Kanzen]

This mean Mayan  from Copan were related and

apply for boths. Mayan and Teos

Spoiler

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Lion.Kanzen

[Apolo.rva]

On 14/03/2021 at 3:25 PM, Lopess said:

 

On 14/03/2021 at 3:21 PM, Lopess said:

Architecture

Está imagen esta erronea, los Teotihuacános no usaban cresteria en sus techos ni tampoco eran acampanados, si no más mas bien planos y adornados con almenas igual que los mexicas.

Soy nuevo aquí, enserio que este mod me emociona más de lo que puedo expresar, no soy programador ni un empresario rico pero quiero ayudar a que esto vea la luz, no se si ustedes son los mismo que hicieron el mod de los mayas pre clasicos de aph24 pero ese mod es increíble y veo lo mismo para este.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lopess]

2 hours ago, Apolo.rva said:

 

Hola Apolo, bienvenido, y siéntete libre de dar consejos, este es un juego hecho de voluntarios, así como las modificaciones en ellos así que no hay necesidad de mucho dinero, solo un montón de deseo de ayudar es suficiente. Sobre la referencia somos conscientes de que no todas las fuentes son 100% precisas. Ya respondiendo tu comentario en Zapotecas no creo que sus estructuras estén tan lejos de la realidad, aquí hay que señalar que en un juego de rts hay varias conversiones a realizar a la hora de hacer una estructura, un ejemplo y el " cuartel "una estructura básica que existe en todas las civs pero su formato debe tener en cuenta un estándar para ser reconocido como tal (probablemente los zapotecs así como muchas civs no tenían una estructura como esta). En relación a los zapotecs (preclásicos que están representados en el juego) creo que la diferencia más notable en su arquitectura sería realmente el textura "desnudo" de sus edificios en lugar de estar cubiertos de rojo, creo que esta fue una elección para jugabilidad y no un descuido o ignorancia, recuerda que en el juego los jugadores se identifican por el color de sus estructuras esto también se debe tener en cuenta para las unidades, tal vez en el futuro se pueda hacer algo al respecto.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Lopess

[Lopess]

Relaciones Teotihuacan Monte Alban.

 

Thttps://www.elsevier.es/es-revista-anales-antropologia-95-articulo-procedencia-mica-teotihuacan-control-recursos-S0185122516300327

[Lion.Kanzen]

The style is almost Aztec.

Many square things.

The hardest part will be the textures.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The city of Teotihuacan was one of the most important religious centers of Mesoamerica. Its skyline was dominated by two enormous pyramids that the Aztecs called the "Pyramid of the Sun" and the "Pyramid of the Moon", both joined by a wide avenue. It was a planned city with more than two thousand structures. While farmers lived mainly in wooden houses, other inhabitants lived in stone houses decorated with paintings and murals and, in some cases, with drainage systems.

 

The city of Teotihuacan became the epicenter of culture and commerce in ancient Mesoamerica, surpassing ancient Rome in size.

In the Late Formative period, a series of urban centers emerged in central Mexico. The most prominent of these appears to have been Cuicuilco, on the southern shore of Lake Texcoco. Scholars have speculated that the eruption of the Xitle volcano may have triggered a mass migration into the Teotihuacán valley. These settlers would have founded and accelerated the growth of Teotihuacan.

 

Other scholars have presented the Totonaca people as the true founders of Teotihuacan, and the debate continues to this day. There is evidence that at least some of the people who lived in the city of Teotihuacan were from areas of Teotihuacan influence (Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya, among other peoples). The ethnic origin of the inhabitants of Teotihuacan is also a subject of debate and they may have belonged to the Nahuatl, Otomi, Totonaca or other ethnic groups. It has often been suggested that Teotihuacan was actually a multi-ethnic state.

Teotihuacan society was organized in a hierarchical manner. At the social summit was the governor with his relatives "the nobles"; then there were the administrative and religious officials who supported the government (these characters were also of noble origin). These higher social strata were in charge of the administration of the cities and the maintenance of social control. The majority of the Teotihuacan population was made up of farmers, and to a lesser extent of artisans and merchants.

 

The government was centralized where the priestly and warrior nobility occupied the highest positions in the autonomous kingdom (cacicazgo) of Teotihuacan.

GATHERING, HUNTING AND HUNTING: They also gathered plants such as juniper berries, rushes, purslane, nopales and some herbs. The proportion of these wild plants in the Teotihuacan diet is not certain. To supplement their diet, the Teotihuacanos hunted animals such as white-tailed deer, rabbits and waterfowl. They domesticated turkeys and dogs, but it is not known if they bred them for food, although it is more likely. The Aztecs, however, did consume dog meat, which was considered a delicacy, and it is thought possible that this was also a characteristic of the inhabitants of the city of Teotihuacan.

ECONOMIC RESOURCES: Teotihuacan had an economic importance, particularly, for the existence of large mineral deposits of obsidian (The largest obsidian deposit in Mesoamerica was located near the city of Teotihuacan). Obsidian was mainly used in the manufacture of tools. The Teotihuacans pushed the exploitation of obsidian to neighboring communities. They also found in their territory the essential clay (basalt, adobe and tuff) for their ceramics and constructions. They also exploited minerals such as tin from the mines in the current Mexican state of Queretaro.

 

INTERNATIONAL TRADE: Trade in large territories especially would have played an important role in the economy of the Teotihuacan culture. Teotihuacan commodities were exchanged in trade, they obtained cotton, cocoa, hematite, jade, turquoise, cinnabar as well as ceramics from other regions, Teotihuacan exports were pottery, as well as obsidian tools. Trade has resulted in a great cultural influence that evidences that the Teotihuacanos were involved in trade relations as far away as the Mayan lowlands, Guatemalan highlands, northern Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico coast.

 

HUMAN SACRIFICES: The Teotihuacan people practiced human and animal sacrifices, according to archaeological findings in the pyramids of Teotihuacan. Recent studies believe that the Teotihuacan people offered human sacrifices as part of a commemoration when the administrative buildings (pyramids) were expanded. The victims were probably prisoners of war who were brought to the Teotihuacan cities for ritual sacrifice to ensure the prosperity of the city. In the human sacrifices the victims were decapitated, their hearts were removed, they could also be killed by blows to the head or they could be buried alive.

 

SACRIFICE OF ANIMALS: Animals that were considered sacred for representing mystical and military powers were also sacrificed in various ways. The sacred animals of the Teotihuacanos were mainly: the puma, wolf, eagle, hawk, owl, snakes, among other animals.

The city of Teotihuacan was built around 300 AD, and is characterized by the enormous size of its monuments, carefully arranged on geometric and symbolic principles. Most of its monumental structures are the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the Pyramid of the Sun (the third largest pyramid in the world) and the Pyramid of the Moon. Teotihuacan culture and architecture was influenced by the Olmec culture, which is considered the "mother civilization" of Mesoamerica. The earliest Teotihuacan buildings are dated to 200 BC, and the largest pyramid, the Pyramid of the Sun, was completed in 100 AD.

 

We also know that the Teotihuacan people were very religious because of the number of religious artifacts and buildings in the city. Surprisingly, Teotihuacan contains more temples than any pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican society. There are two main pyramids, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, dedicated to religious worship. Also, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl with magnificent feathered serpent heads on the walls (paredes, simply building walls).

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

Based on ceramic styles found in the ruins, the team estimates that construction at the site commenced at least 100 years before 378, a pivotal date in Maya history. According to Maya inscriptions, Teotihuacan’s king sent a general known as Born of Fire to topple Tikal’s king, Jaguar Paw, and installed his young son as its new ruler. Born of Fire arrived at Tikal on January 16, 378, the same day that Jaguar Paw “entered the water”—a Mayan metaphor for death.

 

After the takeover, Tikal flourished for several centuries, conquering and pacifying nearby city-states and spreading its culture and influence throughout the lowlands. Tikal’s hegemony during this period is well-documented, but what remains unknown is why, after decades of friendly coexistence, Teotihuacan turned against its former ally.

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2021/04/archaeologists-discover-mysterious-monument-hidden-in-plain-sight

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Teotihuacan

They are like a mixture of Maya with Aztec (clothes from the valley of Mexico) War paint like Aztec, and Maya ornaments.

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

they are basically pre Aztec.

https://ancientamerindia.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/teotihuacan-warfare-300-700-ad/

With a theocratic based political structure, dominated by a priesthood elite and warring nobility (there is no evidence of individualistic power concentration, like on the figure of a king) it is most probable that Teotihuacan had a strong military potential, in order to ensure order and supremacy of the dominant civilization and its rulers.

 

The influence which Teotihuacan exercised among the Maya was multifaceted and full of cultural resonance, persisting long after the fall of the city. The capacity of Teotihuacan to directly influence the Maya history, besides the temporary sovereignty over conquered territories, indicates that this dominance was mostly political, though occasionally founded on the military power.

 

 

 

Embassy like system.

Teotihuacan was a cosmopolitan city, having received a considerable number of foreigners like Maya groups coming from colonies set in such territories, from the Oaxaca region and from Veracruz. Altogether they formed an independent district, in which most elements of their original cultures were preserved.

One crucial element of Teotihuacan warrior was the ‘mirror’ worn on his back. Called a tezcacuitlapilli by the later Mexica, the mirror consisted of a small stone disk to which pieces of iron pyrite were attached in a mosaic. Visual depictions indicate that feathers commonly ringed these mirrors. An additional decorative touch might include a knot securing a swath of feathers to the mirror

They wore sandals, shell or bread necklaces, large earflares and short loincloth skirts; all clothing of a typical – if elite – Teotihuacan male. The main warring emblems tucked amongst this otherwise ordinary clothing were year signs, owl pectorals, and the ultimate warrior costume accessory: circular Tlaloc goggles. These usually rang the human eye, but were sometimes shoved up on the forehead in a style similar to modern goggle wearing.

solely with protective armaments of the martial sort: they wore spiritual armaments as well. These features, found in the city’s military imagery are the incorporation of animal attributes in the costume of most warriors. 

Although a shamanic rationale may have underlined the existence of animal warriors at Teotihuacan, the real strength of the costumes was their ability to foster collective identities. The animal costumes of Teotihuacan do not seem to represent an individual as much they designate groups of warriors who wore the same costume and shared an animal companion. A vessel from the site of Las Colinas near Teotihuacan confirms the existence of these groups: on the bowl each warrior in the procession walks behind the symbol of is military order. The depicted heraldry includes such entities as a bird, a canine, a feathered serpent and a tassel headdress, the later indicating that animals were not the only military emblems. In the white patio of Atetelco there can be seen images of eagle and coyote warriors and there are also representations of jaguar warriors in the murals of Teotihuacan.

----In this faction we will have warriors with animal names---

For defence, square or rectangular shields were used, flexible or rigid, similar to those found among the Maya.

https://ancientamerindia.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/teotihuacan-warfare-300-700-ad/

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

Just now, Lion.Kanzen said:

 

they are basically pre Aztec.

https://ancientamerindia.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/teotihuacan-warfare-300-700-ad/

With a theocratic based political structure, dominated by a priesthood elite and warring nobility (there is no evidence of individualistic power concentration, like on the figure of a king) it is most probable that Teotihuacan had a strong military potential, in order to ensure order and supremacy of the dominant civilization and its rulers.

 

The influence which Teotihuacan exercised among the Maya was multifaceted and full of cultural resonance, persisting long after the fall of the city. The capacity of Teotihuacan to directly influence the Maya history, besides the temporary sovereignty over conquered territories, indicates that this dominance was mostly political, though occasionally founded on the military power.

 

 

 

Embassy like system.

Teotihuacan was a cosmopolitan city, having received a considerable number of foreigners like Maya groups coming from colonies set in such territories, from the Oaxaca region and from Veracruz. Altogether they formed an independent district, in which most elements of their original cultures were preserved.

One crucial element of Teotihuacan warrior was the ‘mirror’ worn on his back. Called a tezcacuitlapilli by the later Mexica, the mirror consisted of a small stone disk to which pieces of iron pyrite were attached in a mosaic. Visual depictions indicate that feathers commonly ringed these mirrors. An additional decorative touch might include a knot securing a swath of feathers to the mirror

They wore sandals, shell or bread necklaces, large earflares and short loincloth skirts; all clothing of a typical – if elite – Teotihuacan male. The main warring emblems tucked amongst this otherwise ordinary clothing were year signs, owl pectorals, and the ultimate warrior costume accessory: circular Tlaloc goggles. These usually rang the human eye, but were sometimes shoved up on the forehead in a style similar to modern goggle wearing.

solely with protective armaments of the martial sort: they wore spiritual armaments as well. These features, found in the city’s military imagery are the incorporation of animal attributes in the costume of most warriors. 

Although a shamanic rationale may have underlined the existence of animal warriors at Teotihuacan, the real strength of the costumes was their ability to foster collective identities. The animal costumes of Teotihuacan do not seem to represent an individual as much they designate groups of warriors who wore the same costume and shared an animal companion. A vessel from the site of Las Colinas near Teotihuacan confirms the existence of these groups: on the bowl each warrior in the procession walks behind the symbol of is military order. The depicted heraldry includes such entities as a bird, a canine, a feathered serpent and a tassel headdress, the later indicating that animals were not the only military emblems. In the white patio of Atetelco there can be seen images of eagle and coyote warriors and there are also representations of jaguar warriors in the murals of Teotihuacan.

----In this faction we will have warriors with animal names---

For defence, square or rectangular shields were used, flexible or rigid, similar to those found among the Maya.

https://ancientamerindia.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/teotihuacan-warfare-300-700-ad/

 

The introduction of the bow in Mesoamerica is a subject of much debate. In the past, researchers, based on very limited evidence (e.g., Müeller 1966b:230), believed that the bow and arrow was used at Teotihuacán. However, both the large size of Classic period bifacial points and those produced beside the Pyramid of the Moon suggest that these were used to arm spears and darts. More likely, Teotihuacán miniature points were symbolic representations of dart points that were deposited as ceremonial offerings, along with miniature sacrificial knives and the zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines that were deposited in the same place. Worse still, there are no representations of the use of bow and arrow in Teotihuacan art, while there are abundant representations of the use of spears and darts. However, Aoyama (2005) proposes that the bow and arrow were in use in the Maya lowlands by the end of the first millennium AD and that their exact introduction to the Central Highlands must be resolved through use and wear studies such as those he conducted.

Quigley (1983) provides a useful summary of historical and prehistoric weapon systems. He details that the most common battle progression in historical cases involved sequential stages that began with missile launching, followed by the use of shock weapons at close range, and concluded with the pursuit of prisoners once the battle had been clearly decided in favor of one of the armies (abbreviated M-S-P for missile-shock-persecution). For example, in the wars of pre-modern Europe, the sequence followed a progression of artillery, bayonets and cavalry (Quigley 1983:43). The atlatl possesses a range of approximately 70 m, but its aim declines considerably after 46 m (Hassig 1992:47). Thus, if the bow and arrow were not used, Quigley's M-S-P progression in Teotihuacan battles would have been initiated with the use of slings and darts thrown at relatively short range. There is no evidence of the use of the macuahuitl (the Aztec obsidian-edged broadsword) at Teotihuacán. This weapon does not appear in the art of the city and no tombs have been uncovered.

 

The weapon does not appear in the art of the city, and no burials have been discovered with parallel lines of obsidian blades that may have been the remnants of such a weapon after the disintegration of the wooden portion. Accordingly, it is likely that the shock stage of Teotihuacano combat involved the usage of hafted knives, thrusting spears, and clubs at close range. The pursuit stage would likely have resulted in the acquisition of captives to serve as sacrifices, laborers, or to extract ransom and tribute.

It is important to note that the vast majority of Teotihuacán dart points were produced for combat and as part of offerings. The only animal species in the vicinity of Teotihuacán that could be hunted efficiently using dart points would have been the white-tailed deer (see Ellis 1997). Smaller animals such as rabbits and birds would have been caught with the use of slingshots, traps, or blowguns-the use of the latter is depicted in the city's art. The impact these animals would receive from such a large, stone-headed instrument thrown with an atlatl would virtually tear them apart, making this a hunting strategy of little effectiveness.

 

PITTmem21-Carballo_2011.pdf

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]