Mesoamerican ballgame: Did you mean...?

Montezuma (aka Moctezuma), or more correctly, Motecuhzoma II Xocoyotzin, meaning 'Angry Like A Lord’, was the last fully independent ruler of the Aztec empire before the civilization's collapse after the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th...

Quetzalcóatl (pron. Quet-zal-co-at) or 'Plumed Serpent' was one of the most important gods in ancient Mesoamerica. Quetzalcóatl was the god of winds and rain, and the creator of the world and humanity. A mix of bird and rattlesnake, his name...

The Aztec Sun Stone (or Calendar Stone) depicts the five consecutive worlds of the sun from Aztec mythology. The stone is not, therefore, in any sense a functioning calendar, but rather it is an elaborately carved solar disk, which for the...

A mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”) is an artistic representation of higher thought and deeper meaning given as a geometric symbol used in spiritual, emotional, or psychological work to focus one's attention. The image first appears in India...

Tikal, located in the north of the Petén region of Guatemala, was a major Maya city which flourished between 300 and 850 CE. The city, known to the Maya themselves as Mutul, is one of the grandest in Mesoamerica. Amongst the first Maya cities...

An obelisk is a stone rectangular pillar with a tapered top forming a pyramidion, set on a base, erected to commemorate an individual or event and honor the gods. The ancient Egyptians created the form at some point in the Early Dynastic...

Chaco Canyon was the center of a pre-Columbian civilization flourishing in the San Juan Basin of the American Southwest from the 9th to the 12th century CE. Chacoan civilization represents a singular period in the history of an ancient people...

Copper was probably the first metal used by ancient cultures, and the oldest artefacts made with it date to the Neolithic period. The shiny red-brown metal was used for jewellery, tools, sculpture, bells, vessels, lamps, amulets, and death...

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 of hearts...

Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (also spelt Velásquez, 1465-1524) was a Spanish conquistador who conquered Cuba in 1511, became the island's first governor for the next decade, and sponsored expeditions of conquest directed at the American mainland...