Ancient Art of Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica gave rise to a group of stratified, culturally related agrarian civilizations spanning an approximately 3,000-year period before European arrival.  This assortment of ancient cultures that shared religious beliefs, art, architecture, and technology included the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huastec, Purepecha (also known as the Tarascans), Toltec, and Mexica/Aztecs.  These indigenous civilizations built pyramid-temples, and developed mathematics,  astronomy, medicine, a unique writing system, highly accurate calendars, fine arts, intensive agriculture, engineering, an abacus calculator, and complex theology.  Their number system was base 20 and included zero.  While many city-states, kingdoms, and empires competed with one another for power and prestige, they consolidated power and distributed influence in matters of trade, art, politics, technology, and theology.  Evidence of trade routes starting as far north as the Mexico Central Plateau, and extending to the Pacific coast indicate cultural exchange between these civilizations operated with various interruptions from pre-Olmec times up to the Late Classical Period (600–900 CE).

I've just uploaded over 30 of my images of artifacts from a variety of these cultures in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to Wikimedia Commons:




Image: Veracruz Remojadas ceramic standing figure 500-700 CE photographed by Mary Harrsch at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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