4. the maya and toltec civilizations

Pre-Columbian Art 4

The Maya and Toltec Civilizations

Credit to Gardner’s Art Through The Ages 12th Ed.

Classic Period: 300-900

• Maya:– Foundations for the Maya were laid during the Preclassic

Period, much in alignment with the Olmec traditions– Lowland areas of Belize, southern Mexico, Guatemala, and

Honduras– Abandoned their early egalitarian life and adopted a

hierarchical autocratic society• Evolved into typical Maya city-state governed by hereditary rulers

and ranked nobility• Egalitarian: believing all people are equal and deserve equal

opportunities• Autocratic: ruler who has absolute power

The Maya Area


• Maya:– Origins and demise of the Maya are obscure, but

historical research has provided some insight into Maya culture

– Glorified their rulers and oppressed their lower classes

– Undertook and broke strategic political alliances– Waged war– Practiced human sacrifice


• Maya:– Lots of vast complexes built• Terraced temple-pyramids• Palaces• Plazas• Residences of the governing elite• Ball courts

Mesoamerican Ball Game• Originated with the Olmec, in fact, Olmec is a Nahuatl (Aztec) name

meaning “rubber people”, referencing the rubber ball and the Olmec’s skill in the game

• Rubber came from the latex-growing region of the Olmec territory• Sunken earthen ball courts and rubber balls have been found at

Olmec sites• Little is known about the rules (how many players on the field, how

goals were scored and tallied, how competitions were arranged), but we do know that:• Players could not touch the ball with their hands• Could use their heads, elbows, hips, and legs

Mesoamerican Ball Game• Size of the courts vary, largest known is at Chichén Itzá (500 ft. long), a

standard soccer field is between 300-400 ft.• Some courts have stone rings for the ball to be tossed through (?)• Ball may have been bounced against the walls and into the end zones• Wore thick leather belts, sometimes helmets• Padded their knees and arms• Was not solely for entertainment; the ball may have represented a

celestial body (like the sun), its movements over the court imitating the sun’s daily passage through the sky

• Sometimes ended in human sacrifice, probably of captives taken in battle and then forced to play the game they were predestined to lose!

Mesoamerican Ball Game• Also see this game in Mesoamerican mythology:

• Maya epic called Popol Vuh (Council Book): legendary twins forced to play against the evil lords of the Underworld • The brothers lose and are sacrificed, the sons of one twin

travel to the Underworld, and after a series of trials, including a ball game, outwit the lords and kill them

• They revive their father who’d been buried in the ball court, the younger twins rise to the heavens to become the sun and the moon, and the father becomes the god of maize

• The ball game and its aftermath here are a metaphor for the cycle of life, death, and regeneration that permeated Mesoamerican religion

Ball Court at Chichén Itzá


• Maya:– Despite all of these complexes, no one site ever achieved

complete dominance as the center of power (unlike Teotihuacán)

– Rulers commissioned cosmic symbolism in art to stress their descent from gods as reinforcement for their claims to a legitimate right to rule

– The unified institution of Maya government was rigidly conservative, and lasted almost 1,000 years

– Maya civilization began to decline in the 8th century– By 900, it had vanished


• Maya Writing:– The Maya were obsessed with time and religion and

largely uninterested in recording everyday events of human lives

– The Maya depicted their rulers in their art and noted their achievements in their texts

– Mayan writing was largely phonetic: the hieroglyphs are made of signs representing sounds in the Mayan language

– Only half of the ancient Mayan script can be translated accurately into spoken Mayan

Classic Period: 300-900• Maya Astronomy and Calendars:

– Highly developed knowledge of arithmetic and of observing the movements of the sun, moon, and planets

– Intricate and astonishingly accurate calendar– Radically different way of measuring time than we are

accustomed to, but it was just as efficient and accurate– With their calendar, they established the genealogical lines of

their rulers, which certified their claim to rule, and created the only true written history in ancient America

– Other Mesoamerican cultures had calendars, but the Mayan calendar is the only one that has been able to be translated so far


• Maya Architecture and Ritual:– Sacred buildings were raised and enclosed– Centrally located– Religious/civic transactions that guaranteed order of

the state and the cosmos occurred here– Spacious plazas designed for masses of spectators

(who were exposed to propaganda in these settings)– In art, the Maya elite are depicted wearing colorful

cotton textiles, feathers, jaguar skins, and jade

Classic Period: 300-900• Maya, Copán:

– Western border of Honduras– More hieroglyphic inscriptions and well-preserved carved

monuments than any other site in the Americas– Was one of the first sites to be excavated– In the Great Plaza, the Maya set up tall, sculpted stone stelae

(upright stone slabs/columns carved with reliefs) carved with portraits of rulers, including their names, dates of reign, and achievements

– The Maya elite, like the Egyptian pharaohs, were portrayed in a conventionalized manner and as eternally youthful• Highly idealized!

Classic Period: 300-900• Maya, Copán:

– Stele D: 736 CE, one of the city’s foremost rulers, Waxaklahun-Ubah-K’awil, known as 18-Rabbit.

– He was the 13th ruler of the city.

– Across his chest he holds a double-headed serpent bar, symbol of the sky and his absolute power

– He was eventually captured and beheaded by the king of neighboring Quiriguá

Ball court at Copán


• Maya, Tikal:– One of the oldest and largest of the Maya cities– Originally covered 75 square miles– Ceremonial center for 75,000 people– Not built on a grid plan– 3,000 separate structures in a 6 square mile area have

been uncovered– The site’s nucleus, the Great Plaza:

• Lots of stelae• Numerous architectural complexes


• Maya, Tikal, the Great Plaza:– 2 pyramids taller than the surrounding rainforest that face

each other across an open square– The larger pyramid, Temple I (Temple of the Giant Jaguar)

• 150 ft.• 9 sharply inclining platforms, possibly symbolizing the 9 levels of

the Underworld• A narrow stairway leads up to a 3-chambered temple• Temple-mausoleum of a great Tikal ruler, Hasaw Chan K’awil,

who died in 732 CE– His body was buried in a vaulted chamber under the pyramid– His portrait was once modeled in stucco on the top of the pyramid

TikalTemple I (Temple of the Giant Jaguar)

Temple I (Temple of the Giant Jaguar), Maya, Tikal, Petén, Guatemala, 732 CE


• Maya, Jaina Island:– Small-scale, lifelike, freestanding sculptures– Illustrate everyday life, even comic at times– Represent a wider range of types of people than is typical of Mayan art:

• Ball players, women weaving, older men, supernatural beings, amorous couples, rulers, and warriors

– Many of the hollow ones serve as whistles– Made in ceramic workshops on the mainland, often with molds, but burials on the

island cemetery of Jaina off the western coast of Yucatán yielded hundreds of these figures.

– Made to accompany the dead on their journey to the Underworld• But the meaning and function is unknown (i.e. male figures are not found exclusively in male

burials)– Painted with bright colors, specifically “Maya Blue”, made from combining clay and

indigo, a vegetable dye• Maya Blue has proven virtually indestructible

Jaina Island, Mexico

Ball player, Maya, from Jaina Island, Mexico, 700-900 CE, Painted clay, 6” tall

Traces of Maya Blue


• Maya, Bonampak (“Painted Walls”):– Southeastern Mexico – All the scenes at Bonampak portray the events and ceremonies that

welcome a new royal heir (shown as a toddler in some scenes)– They include presentations, preparations for a royal party, dancing, battle,

and the sacrifice of prisoners– Record important aspects of Maya court life

• Warriors surrounding captives on a terraced platform (pyramid steps?)• Figures have natural proportions, and overlap, twist, turn, and gesture• Artists used fluid and calligraphic line to outline the figures• Used color to imply texture and volume• Combined their pigments (both mineral and organic) with a mixture of water,

crushed limestone, and vegetable gums and applied them to their stucco walls in a technique that is a cross between fresco and tempera

Presentation of captives to Lord Chan Muwan, Maya, Room 2, Structure 1, Bonampak, Mexico, 790 CE, 17’x15’

Lord Chan Muwan in high-backed sandals

Lord Chan Muwan’s wife

Crouching victim begging formercy

Middle register: captives anticipating death, one is already dead, sprawled at theruler’s feet

Lower register: attendants oflower rank

Upper register: nobles/lords


• Maya, Bonampak:– The Bonampak victory was short-lived:– The murals were never finished– Shortly after the dates written on the walls, the

site seems to have been abandoned

Classic Period: 300-900• Maya, Yaxchilán site :– A rare portrayal in monumental art of a woman playing an

important role in Maya ritual– Shield Jaguar (the ruler Itzamna Balam II) and his principal

wife, Lady Xoc:• Elaborate woven garment, headdress, and jewelry• She pierces her tongue with a barbed cord in a bloodletting ceremony

that celebrated the birth of a son to one of the ruler’s other wives, as well as an alignment between the planets Saturn and Jupiter

• The celebration must have taken place in a dark chamber or at night because Shield Jaguar is holding a blazing torch

• These ceremonies were intended to produce hallucinations

Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc, Maya, Lintel 24, Temple 23, Yaxchilán, Mexico,725 CE, Limestone, 3’7”x2’6”

Blazing torch

Piercing tongue with barbed cord

Shield Jaguar

Lady Xoc

Classic Period: 300-900• Maya Vase Painting:

– Often used hieroglyphs to indicate the contents of the vessel• One pot marked with a glyph for cacao, or chocolate, still contained

remnants of the prestigious drink when it was discovered– Some artists recorded their lineage on the vases, suggesting their

noble birth and high status– Vases were used for food and drink, but ultimately ended up in

tombs where they accompanied the deceased into the Underworld– Likely commissioned by the deceased before death, and were

occasionally sent from distant sites as funerary offerings• The Maya intermarried with other powerful families to consolidate power

between important cities, and trade and gift exchanges were common

End of the Classic Period and the Early Postclassic Period (800-1250 CE)

Maya, Chichén Itzá

• Around 900, many of the great Maya sites were abandoned to the jungle, leaving a few northern Maya cities to flourish for another century or two before they, too, were abandoned

• Zapotecs from Monte Albán in Oaxaca came to an end around 700, and the neighboring Mixtec peoples assumed Power in this area during the Postclassic Period.

• The war and confusion that followed the collapse of the Classic civilizations broke the great states up into small, local, isolated, political entities

• The collapse encouraged even more warlike regimes and chronic aggression• The militant city-state of Chichén Itzá dominated Yucatán, while in central

Mexico, the Toltec and later the Aztec, both ambitious migrants from the north, forged empires by force of arms

Chichén Itzá, Yucatán Peninsula

Early Postclassic Period (800-1250 CE)

• Maya, Chichén Itzá:– Yucatán: flat, low, limestone peninsula covered in scrub

vegetation– During the Classic Period, Mayan-speaking peoples sparsely

inhabited this region– However, when southern Classic Maya sites were abandoned

after 900, the northern Maya continued to build• Experimented with construction, building materials, and

architecture to a greater extent than ever before• Added piers, columns, and stone mosaics to their structures• Invented a new kind of construction: solid core of coarse rubble on

the inside, outside covered in a veneer of limestone plates

Early Postclassic Period (800-1250 CE)

• Maya, Chichén Itzá:– Caracol (Snail): cylindrical tower, cross section

resembles a conch shell (a symbol of the feathered serpent, Kukulkan, the Maya equivalent of Quetzalcoatl)

– Also called the “Observatory” because the windows were used for astronomical observation• The Maya tracked celestial events to determine when

to plant, when the next eclipse would be, and to foretell and attempt to manipulate the future!

Conch Shell

In the same complex as Caracol is El Castillo, a temple dedicated to Kukulkan on top of a great pyramid

El Castillo Caracol

El Castillo

Caracol El Castillo

Postclassic Period: 900-Spanish conquest of 1521

• Toltec:– Toltec: “Makers of Things”– Powerful tribe of invaders from the north, whose arrival in

Mexico coincided with the great disturbances that contributed to the fall of the Classic civilizations

– Capital at Tula, 900-1200– Great political organizers and military strategists– Dominated large parts of north and central Mexico– Master artisans and farmers– Aztecs later looked back on them admiringly, proud to claim

descent from them

Toltec Capital at Tula


• Toltec, Tula:– 4 colossal “Atlantids” (male statue-columns) on top of “Pyramid

B”– Originally supported a temple roof (which is now gone)– Portray armed warriors – Reflect the grim, warlike regime of the Toltecs– Images of brutal authority– Stand eternally at attention, warding off hostile threats– Wear feathered headdresses– Breastplates = stylized butterflies, symbols of the Toltec– In one hand, they hold a bundle of darts, and in the other, an atlatl

(spear thrower), typical weapons of highland Mexico

Colossal atlantids, Pyramid B, Toltec, Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, 900-1180 CE, Stone, 16’ high

View of Pyramid B at Tula


• Toltec:– By 1180, the last Toltec ruler abandoned Tula, followed by

most of his people.– Years later, the city was catastrophically destroyed,

buildings burned to the ground, and the remaining few people there scattered.

– The reason for their departure and for the destruction of the city are unknown

– Although the stage was set for the rise of the last great civilization of Mesoamerica, the Aztecs did not reach their peak of power for another 300 years

4. the maya and toltec civilizations

Art & Photos