Search
Search Results
Article
Early Explorers of the Maya Civilization: John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood
The names of John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood are forever linked to the Maya and Mayan studies as the two great explorers who documented the ruins from Copan in the south to Chichen Itza in the north. The stories told by Stephens...
Article
Maya Religion: The Light That Came From Beside The Sea
The Mayan religious text, the Popol Vuh (known by many names, among them, The Light That Came From Beside The Sea) is the Quiche Maya story of creation translated into Spanish in the early 18th century CE by the missionary Francisco Ximenez...
Definition
Tarascan Civilization
The Tarascan civilization (aka the Purépecha, after their language) dominated western Mexico and built an empire that would bring it into direct conflict with that other great Mesoamerican civilization of the Post-classic period, the Aztecs...
Article
The Red Handprints of Cozumel & Tulum
The Maya sites of San Gervasio (on the island of Cozumel) and Tulum (on the mainland of Mexico in Quintana Roo) are often overlooked for the better-known Chichen Itza or other spectacular ruins further inland but both these locations have...
Definition
Civilization
Civilization (from the Latin civis=citizen and civitas=city) is a term applied to any society which has developed a writing system, government, production of surplus food, division of labor, and urbanization. The term is difficult to define...
Definition
Ghosts in the Ancient World
A belief in an afterlife was central to every major civilization of the ancient world and this encouraged the recognition of the reality of ghosts as the spirits of the departed who, for one reason or another, either returned from the realm...
Definition
Texcoco
Texcoco (aka Tezcoco or Tetzcoco), located near the eastern shores of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico, was the capital of the Acolhua people. It was a major power in the Aztec period and a member of the Triple Alliance along with Tenochtitlan...
Definition
Aztec Art
The Aztec culture, centred at the capital of Tenochtitlan, dominated most of Mesoamerica in the 15th-16th centuries. With military conquest and trade expansion, the art of the Aztecs also spread, helping the Aztec civilization achieve a cultural...
Definition
Montezuma
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...
Definition
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza, located at the northern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula of modern Mexico, was a Maya city which was later significantly influenced by the Toltec civilization. Flourishing between c. 750 and 1200 CE, the site is rich in monumental...