Anthropology: Did you mean...?

Ehecatl was a Mesoamerican god of air and winds, especially those which brought rains. Regarded as a manifestation of the great feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, he was sometimes known as Quetzalcoatl-Ehecatl, in which guise he helped...

Tonatiuh, 'Turquoise Lord,' was the 5th and present sun in the Aztec view of the cosmos and the fierce sun god of several other Postclassic Mesoamerican cultures, including the Toltecs. It was thought that only the regular offering...

The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Jewish scriptures and the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Genesis takes its name from the opening line in Hebrew – beresit, ("in the beginning") – later translated into Greek...

Ahuitzotl (Auitzotl) was an Aztec ruler who reigned between 1486 and 1502 CE. He was one of the greatest generals of the ancient Americas and he left to his nephew, Montezuma, an enlarged and consolidated empire which had been ruthlessly...

The Description of Africa is the first comprehensive book about Africa, written by Leo Africanus, an African scholar trained in the Islamic intellectual tradition, in 1526, during the Italian Renaissance. A skillful mixture...

Aside from the usual contributions of its noble politicians and military commanders, the story of a nation also records the invaluable literary influences of its poets, dramatists, and historians. The long history of the Roman...

Chacchoben (pronounced chac-CHO-bin) is a Maya site dated to c. 700 located in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Once a large and significant urban religious center, the city was abandoned c. 900-950 CE at about the same time as...

Xochicalco in central Mexico was an important hilltop centre from the 8th century CE and was a rival and successor of Teotihuacán. Architecture at the site is closely connected to that of the Classic Maya, Teotihuacan, and Veracruz...

The Maya hieroglyphic writing system was a sophisticated combination of pictographs directly representing objects and ideograms (glyphs) expressing more abstract concepts such as actions, ideas and syllabic sounds. Maya writing has...

Jade was a highly-esteemed material in many Mesoamerican cultures, making it a valued regional trade good and first choice for objects of religious and artistic value such as masks, ceremonial axeheads, figurines, and jewellery...