Landscape and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: April 2001
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 383
ISBN-13: 9780813337326
Subjects: American history: pre-Columbian period, BCE to c 1500; Sociology; Latin America - Mexico; Archaeology / Anthropology; Social Science; Central America; Mexico; Archaeology; Antiquities; History-Latin America - Mexico; Social Science / Archaeology; Indian architecture; Indians of Mexico; Politics and government; Religion
First sentence: For almost three thousand years, Mesoamerican societies have crafted spaces for ritual performance with the express purpose of forging power relations.
Description: "From the early cities in the second millennium B.C. to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan on the eve of the Spanish conquest, ancient Mesoamericans created landscapes full of meaning and power in the center of their urban spaces. The sixteenth-century description of Tenochtitlan by Bernal Diaz del Castillo and the archaeological remnants of Teotihuacan attest to the power and centrality of these urban configurations in ancient Mesoamerican history.

In Landscape and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica, Rex Koontz, Kathryn Reese-Taylor, and Annabeth Headrick explore the cultural logic that structured and generated these centers.".

"Through case studies of specific urban spaces and their meanings, the authors examine the general principles by which the ancient Mesoamericans created meaningful urban space. In a profoundly interdisciplinary exchange involving both archaeologists and art historians, this volume connects the symbolism of those landscapes, the performances that activated this symbolism, and the cultural poetics of these ensembles."--BOOK JACKET.