The Business of Narrative at Tula: An Analysis of the Vestibule Frieze, Trade, and Ritual

1993 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Kristan-Graham
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Important Center ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
As If

The so-called frieze of the Caciques at Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, is an 8-m-long bench with most of its original polychromed face intact. It formed part of a larger composition that once ran around the perimeter of the Vestibule, a colonnaded hall that served as a foyer for Pyramid B. The composition of profile males is adapted to look as if they are actually marching around the room toward the pyramid. Although Hugo Moedano Koer (1947) identified the figures as caciques or local chiefs, an analysis of architectural setting, subject matter, and ethnohistory suggests instead that the figures represent merchants engaged in rituals related to trade. This new reading demonstrates that Tula had decorative programs paralleling its development as an important center of long-distance exchange during the Early Postclassic period, and that merchants from Tula may have been a plausible prototype for Aztec pochteca.

scholarly journals All That Glitters Is Not Plumbate: Diffusion and Imitation of Plumbate Pottery during the Early Postclassic Period (AD 900–1200) at the Malpaís of Zacapu, Michoacán, Mexico

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa Jadot ◽  
Grégory Pereira ◽  
Hector Neff ◽  
Michael D. Glascock
Keyword(s):  
Neutron Activation ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Know How ◽  
Western Mexico ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Instrumental Neutron Activation

In Mesoamerica, the Early Postclassic (AD 900–1200) is characterized by the long-distance circulation of pottery with a very hard and shiny coating with a metallic aspect, known as Plumbate ware. Plumbate is linked stylistically to the Toltec culture but was produced in workshops in Soconusco (Chiapas). The discovery of a similar collection of sherds during recent work at the site of El Palacio (Zacapu, Michoacán) shows that Plumbate ware also reached this region of Western Mexico. We carried out instrumental neutron activation analyses (INAA) on 11 of the Zacapu fragments and compared the results to the data from ceramic pastes from the region of Soconusco and Pátzcuaro Basin (Michoacán). Ten sherds were produced in Michoacán and are thus a local imitation, whereas the last fragment corresponds to a Tohil-type Plumbate paste and was transported over a long distance. This raises questions of the modalities for the circulation of this pot and the conditions allowing for production of an imitation (transfer of technical know-how?), which we suggest is linked to the Toltec culture in the center of Mexico.

POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS AND THE EVERYDAY IN POSTCLASSIC OAXACA

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur A. Joyce ◽  
Marc N. Levine ◽  
Stacie M. King ◽  
Jessica Hedgepeth Balkin ◽  
Sarah B. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Regional Authority ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Late Postclassic

AbstractWe use excavations of low-status houses to explore Postclassic political and economic transformations in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca. Following the collapse of Classic period political institutions, commoners experienced greater economic and political autonomy. Residential excavations at Río Viejo indicate that commoners took advantage of the absence of regional authority to gain greater control over surplus craft products, especially cotton thread, as well as access to social valuables and long distance trade. By the Late Postclassic period, the region was once again dominated by powerful rulers. Yet household excavations at Tututepec show that Late Postclassic commoners continued to control some surplus craft production and had access to social valuables like copper and polychrome pottery via market exchange. We argue that Late Postclassic political relations were a product of negotiations among elites and commoners that in part reflect the greater economic autonomy and political power that Early Postclassic people had acquired.

Disturbances in western Afghanistan, 1839–41

1963 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Yapp
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Political Agent ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Town

The subject matter of this article is the disturbances which took place in the area under the control of the government of Qandahar. Between 1839 and 1841 Qandahar formed part of the dominions of Shāh Shuj¯ʻ al-Mulk and its government was nominally carried on by two of his sons, Fatḥ Jang (1839–40) and Muḥammad Tīmūr (1840–2). But in practice the day-to-day management of the government, outside the town of Qandahar, was conducted by the Pārsīwān revenue officials, who had been inherited from the Bārakzais, and who were under the control of the British Political Agent, who in turn was subordinate to Sir William Macnaghten, the Envoy and Minister with Shāh Shujāʻ.

Linguistic Divergence and the Collapse of Preclassic Civilization in Southern Mesoamerica

1987 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce H. Dahlin ◽  
Robin Quizar ◽  
Andrea Dahlin
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Communication Networks ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Proximate Cause ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
Early Classic Period

Based on published lexicostatistical dates, two intervals in the prehistory of southern Mesoamerica stand out as fertile periods in terms of the generation of new languages: the Terminal Preclassic/early Early Classic Periods, and the Early Postclassic Period. After comparing archaeological evidence with language distributions within the subregions of southern Mesoamerica during the first of these periods, we conclude that the cultural processes during both periods had the same potential for producing rapid rates of linguistic divergences. Just as rapid proliferation of linguistic divisions was symptomatic of the well-known collapse of Late Classic Maya civilization, so it can be taken as a sign of a collapse of Terminal Preclassic civilization. Both collapses were characterized by severe population reductions, site abandonments, an increasing balkanization in material culture, and disruption of interregional communication networks, conditions that were contributory to the kind of linguistic isolation that allows language divergences. Unlike in the Terminal Classic collapse episode, small refuge zones persisted in the Early Classic Period that served as sources of an evolving classicism; these refuge zones were exceptions, however, not the rule. Although the collapse of each site had its own proximate cause, we suggest that the enormous geographical range covered by these Early Classic Period site failures points to a single ultimate cause affecting the area as a whole, such as the onset of a prolonged and devastating climatic change.

The Early Postclassic Aztatlán Colonization of the Pacific Coast of Jalisco

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-156
Author(s):  
Joseph B. Mountjoy ◽  
Fabio Germán Cupul-Magaña ◽  
Rafael García de Quevedo-Machain ◽  
Martha Lorenza López Mestas Camberos
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Coast ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Subsistence Strategies ◽  
Specialized Production ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
West Mexico ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Northern Pacific

The focus of this chapter is a recently discovered archaeological site, Arroyo Piedras Azules, located on the northern Pacific coast of Jalisco, Mexico. Excavated materials provide considerable information about the colonization of this area by Aztatlán groups in the Early Postclassic period, as well as the nature of the expansion of the Aztatlán phenomenon in West Mexico. Based on the data thus far obtained from the site, the authors offer five significant conclusions regarding the development and the spread of the Aztatlán archaeological culture in West Mexico, concerning the timing of development, subsistence strategies of Pacific coastal groups, the nature of Aztatlán expansion, specialized production, and links between the Arroyo Piedras Azules site to the Mixteca-Puebla area.

Introductory Note on the Vikuaḥ

1984 ◽  
pp. 97-101
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Introductory Note ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Formed Part

This chapter addresses the opening passage of the Vikuaḥ. The Talmudic passage purports to describe how the ‘five disciples of Jesus’ were executed by the Jewish authorities. The whole passage is clearly a piece of fantasy, in questionable taste, intended as a counterblast to Christian propaganda. It is strange, however, that the authenticity of the passage as the opening of the Vikuaḥ has never been questioned. It is omitted from this book’s translation on the ground that it is highly doubtful whether it formed part of the work originally composed by Naḥmanides. The chapter then explains the reasons for this conclusion. Naḥmanides’ account of the Barcelona Disputation was composed at the request of the Bishop of Gerona, Peter of Castellnou. It is highly unlikely, therefore, that Naḥmanides would have introduced into his account highly offensive and inflammatory matter which was extraneous to the subject-matter of the disputation.

BURIAL PRACTICES AT TEOTIHUACAN IN THE EARLY POSTCLASSIC PERIOD: The Vaillant and Linné Excavations (1931–1932)

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina M. Elson ◽  
Kenneth Mowbray
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Local People ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
Early Postclassic

In 1931 and 1932, George Vaillant and Sigvald Linné excavated 34 burials and 17 offerings dating to the Early Postclassic period (a.d.900–1150). The features were located on the ruins of the Classic-period site of Teotihuacan and within the boundaries of a roughly 25–50 ha zone identified by the Teotihuacan Mapping Project as having a dense Early Postclassic-period occupation. The results of Vaillant's excavations have not been published. An examination of the Vaillant–Linné data sheds new light on Early Postclassic-period mortuary ritual and social organization. The identification of several types of burials shows that local people conducted primary and secondary mortuary rituals and indicates the presence of at least two social strata at the site. The content of the burials and offerings supports a division of the Early Postclassic period into two local phases, Mazapan (ca.a.d.900–1000) and Atlatongo (ca.a.d.1000–1100/1150), with these features dating to the earlier phase.

Paleoecological Evidence of an Early Postclassic Occupation in the Southwestern Maya Lowlands: Laguna Las Pozas, Guatemala

2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Johnston ◽  
Andrew J. Breckenridge ◽  
Barbara C. Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Refugee Population ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Maya Collapse ◽  
Terminal Classic Period

Magnetic, palynological, and paleoecological data indicate that in the Río de la Pasión drainage, one of the most thoroughly investigated areas of the southern Maya lowlands, a refugee population remained in the Laguna Las Pozas basin long after the Classic Maya collapse and the Terminal Classic period, previously identified by archaeologists as eras of near-total regional abandonment. During the Early Postclassic period, ca. A. D. 900 to 1200, agriculturalists colonized and deforested the Laguna Las Pozas basin for agriculture while adjacent, abandoned terrain was undergoing reforestation. After discussing the archaeological utility of magnetic analyses, we conclude that following the Maya collapse, some refugee populations migrated to geographically marginal non-degraded landscapes within the southern lowlands not previously occupied by the Classic Maya.

Ciceronian and Heraclean Professiones

1918 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jefferson Elmore
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Interesting Article ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Puzzling Problem ◽  
Difficult Part ◽  
New System ◽  
Opening Section ◽  
As If

Perhaps the most difficult part of the famous inscription from Heraclea (around which so many controversies have raged) is the opening section of the extant text, where from a given form of procedure it is required to determine the subject matter. A solution of this puzzling problem, which I proposed some months ago, has recently been made the subject of an interesting article in this journal by Dr. E. G. Hardy. Mr. Hardy has long been engaged in this field, and has rendered much useful service. In this article, however, he seems to be interested in my views chiefly in their relation to his own theory. This is apparent in his agreements with me. For example, one aim of my study was to identify the professiones of Cicero's letters ad Att. xiii. 33, 1, and ad Fam. xvi. 23, 1, with those provided for in the first section of the inscription. It appeared that the returns mentioned by Cicero were registrations of property, that they were to be made yearly, and that they had their prototype in the annual property census of Egypt. It also seemed clear that Caesar's recensus populi of 46 was modelled on the Egyptian kατ' oίkíαm άπoγραφήiKíαν. With these preliminary conclusions (by no means unimportant in themselves) Mr. Hardy is not unwilling to agree. He even goes so far as to say that I have made a good case for ‘a new system of professiones somehow relating to property and introduced in 46.’ He thinks too that the settlement of the frumentations as a part of a more comprehensive legislative scheme (as my view implies) would be most appropriate. So far so good, but when it comes to the vital point of admitting a connection between these matters and vv. 1–19 of the Tablet he draws back as if from some fatal step.

scholarly journals Between Modernity and Post-Modernity

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-435
Author(s):  
Eric Winkel
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
The West ◽  
Critical Essay ◽  
Knee Jerk ◽  
Working Paper ◽  
The Creation ◽  
As If

Kazuo Shimogaki 's working paper, number fourteen in the IMESseries, is a critical essay of The Islamic Left, a so-far one-time-onlyprivately produced journal. Three of its five articles are written by HasanHanafi, a professor at Cairo University, and a summary/translation ofHanafi's first and most important article. The essay itself abounds ingrammatical and typographical errors, while the swnmary/translation isdone very well. There is enough evidence that Shimogaki has a sharpmind, and I anticipate eagerly future works.Unfortunately, Shimogaki 's subject matter is not very enlightening,even though many reasons are given for the study of The Islamic Left.Hanafi is located firmly in a reformist tradition with al Afghani and• Abduh. He has all the prejudices of an Egyptian Arab, 1 indulges in endlessanalyses of the "reality" of the Muslim world (with the smug convictionthat his gaze is universal), revels in a knee-jerk hatred of Sufism,2and makes his case for technological boosterism. He also takes forgranted the "backwardness" of the Muslim world, as if the prime accomplishmentof western civilization (which is the creation of nuclearweaponry-what else has engaged the wealth and brain power of theUnited States as much?) was bungled by Islamic civilization.Shimogaki attempts to reform Hanafi in light of postmodernity, buthis own understanding of postmodernity is sketchy (in other words, verypostmodern). Seeing postmodemity teleologically, Shimogaki writes thatHanafi "has not yet reached the newest thought movement in the West, ...

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