scholarly journals Contexts of offerings and ritual maize in the pictographic record in Central Mexico

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 82-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Mazzetto ◽  
Natalia Moragas Segura
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Early Colonial

The objective of this article is an initial enquiry into the evidence and classification of the offerings of maize in Central Mexico from the Classic period to early colonial times. In order to achieve this goal, we will analyse the presence of maize in Central Mexico according to the evidence found in mural paintings and some pictographic codices. Two Mesoamerican cultures will be considered to achieve our analysis: the Teotihuacan and Mexico-Tenochtitlan.  Maize was instrumental in the performance of daily rituals and in the diet of these ancient Mesoamerican cultures and the cereal also had sacred connotations in pre-Hispanic, colonial and contemporary narratives. We suggest this by reading the iconographic and symbolic representations of corn in the form of seeds and pods, or as an ingredient in cooked foods which are represented in the mural paintings of Teotihuacan as well as some codices of the post-Classic Nahua tradition. These methodological enquiries reveal evidence of a cultural continuity in Central Mexico as a contrasting perspective on the archaeological and ethno-historical period. 

RECENT INVESTIGATIONS AT TULA CHICO, TULA, HIDALGO

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-55
Author(s):  
Robert H. Cobean ◽  
Dan M. Healan ◽  
María Elena Suárez
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Direct Control ◽  
Early Postclassic ◽  
Initial Settlement ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
History Of

AbstractRecent excavations at Tula Chico, the monumental center for Tula's earliest settlement, revealed a long and complex history of occupation, beginning with its initial settlement in the Middle Classic period by Coyotlatelco peoples, when much of the region was under Teotihuacan's direct control. During the Epiclassic period, a program of monumental construction began that developed the monumental complex seen today over a period of about 200 years. Although Tula Chico was superseded by Tula Grande, the monumental center for the Early Postclassic city, it continued to be occupied and maintained until its destruction by fire. Tula Chico and Tula Grande show evidence of clear cultural continuity in ceramics, architecture, and sculpture, including “Toltec style” sculpture characteristic of Tula Grande that is present in temporally early contexts at Tula Chico.

scholarly journals Application of a modified Inception-v3 model in the dynasty-based classification of ancient murals

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianfang Cao ◽  
Minmin Yan ◽  
Yiming Jia ◽  
Xiaodong Tian ◽  
Zibang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Transfer Learning ◽  
Adaptive Learning ◽  
Deep Level ◽  
Image Resolution ◽  
Learning Rate ◽  
Stochastic Gradient Descent ◽  
Natural Image ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Proposed Model

AbstractIt is difficult to identify the historical period in which some ancient murals were created because of damage due to artificial and/or natural factors; similarities in content, style, and color among murals; low image resolution; and other reasons. This study proposed a transfer learning-fused Inception-v3 model for dynasty-based classification. First, the model adopted Inception-v3 with frozen fully connected and softmax layers for pretraining over ImageNet. Second, the model fused Inception-v3 with transfer learning for parameter readjustment over small datasets. Third, the corresponding bottleneck files of the mural images were generated, and the deep-level features of the images were extracted. Fourth, the cross-entropy loss function was employed to calculate the loss value at each step of the training, and an algorithm for the adaptive learning rate on the stochastic gradient descent was applied to unify the learning rate. Finally, the updated softmax classifier was utilized for the dynasty-based classification of the images. On the constructed small datasets, the accuracy rate, recall rate, and F1 value of the proposed model were 88.4%, 88.36%, and 88.32%, respectively, which exhibited noticeable increases compared with those of typical deep learning models and modified convolutional neural networks. Comparisons of the classification outcomes for the mural dataset with those for other painting datasets and natural image datasets showed that the proposed model achieved stable classification outcomes with a powerful generalization capacity. The training time of the proposed model was only 0.7 s, and overfitting seldom occurred.

scholarly journals Between the past and the present: the Ixil Maya and the discovery of rare mural paintings in Guatemala

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 169-185
Author(s):  
Jarosław Źrałka ◽  
Katarzyna Radnicka
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Period ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Wall Paintings ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
History Of ◽  
Maya Area ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
North Western

The Ixil Maya area is located in Quiche Department of the north-western part of the Guatemalan Highlands. It has witnessed a continuous occupation since the 1st millennium BC till today. This archaeologically interesting region has provided many important discoveries of rare cultural mixture, with distinct features typical for both Maya Highlands and more distant Lowlands. Recently, the scholarly interest has focused on Chajul where a few years ago, in one of the local houses, well preserved wall paintings dated to the Colonial period were exposed by the house owner during the process of its renovation. With this extraordinary finding a question emerged - are we able to confirm the cultural continuity between the pre-Columbian settlers and modem Ixil who claim «to be always here»? This paper presents a brief outline of the history of the Ixil Maya. It also presents results of some recent and preliminary studies conducted by Polish scholars in this region.

A MAYA CARVED SHELL PLAQUE FROM TULA, HIDALGO, MEXICO

2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald McVicker ◽  
Joel W. Palka
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Field Museum ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Chichen Itza ◽  
Terminal Classic Period

In the early 1880s, a finely carved Maya shell picture plaque was found at the Toltec capital of Tula, central Mexico, and was subsequently acquired by The Field Museum in Chicago. The shell was probably re-carved in the Terminal Classic period and depicts a seated lord with associated Maya hieroglyphs on the front and back. Here the iconography and glyphic text of this unique artifact are examined, the species and habitat of the shell are described, and its archaeological and social context are interpreted. The Tula plaque is then compared with Maya carved jade picture plaques of similar size and design that were widely distributed throughout Mesoamerica, but were later concentrated in the sacred cenote at Chichen Itza. It is concluded that during the Late Classic period, these plaques played an important role in establishing contact between Maya lords and their counterparts representing peripheral and non-Maya domains. The picture plaques may have been elite Maya gifts establishing royal alliances with non-local polities and may have become prestige objects used in caches and termination rituals.

THE MURAL PAINTINGS OF EL ZAPOTAL, VERACRUZ, MEXICO

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cherra Wyllie
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Form Part ◽  
National Treasures

AbstractDuring the 1970s, excavations at El Zapotal revealed a Late Classic period ossuary with multiple burials, sumptuous funerary offerings, and life-sized terracotta sculpture individually on a par with the Chinese national treasures from Xi'an. Less known are murals adorning a U-shaped banquette centering on the monumental clay sculpture of a skeletal Death God.Wyllie, through the assistance of Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Veracruz, produced drawings of the now deteriorating paintings. The murals form part of a larger narrative program integrating sculpture, architectural elements, burial offerings, and human osteological remains connected with Mesoamerican underworld stories of creation.

7. Minor Arts of the Classic Period in Central Mexico

1971 ◽  
pp. 206-227
Author(s):  
Carmen Cook de Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Central Mexico

8 Cultural Continuity and Change

1959 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 182-194
Author(s):  
Clarence H. Webb
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Relative Depth ◽  
Temporal Segmentation ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Cultural Pattern ◽  
Four Levels ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Working Out

This site is one of several key sites in the Caddoan Area which Krieger used in the formulation of his classification of Caddoan cultures. It offers, in Mound B, a clear separation of habitation periods by sterile fills and thereby affords a sharp temporal segmentation of culture levels. We believe that we have been reasonably accurate in relating other habitation levels and burials to the four levels of Mound B in working out the picture of the entire site. It now seems desirable to investigate these levels or periods for (a) evidences of continuity of traits and culture patterns, (b) evidences of abrupt interruption of culture or interjection of an entirely new cultural pattern and (c) evidences of distinct culture sequences, resulting either from internal growth and differentiation or from external influences, sudden or gradual. This site may thereby contribute information as to relative depth of Caddoan culture, to the relationship between Gibson and Fulton aspects, and to temporal associations between the various Caddoan cultures and other cultures of the Southeast.

Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, Postclassic Chronology

1996 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Toby Evans ◽  
AnnCorinne Freter
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Rural Villages ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Late Postclassic ◽  
Absolute Dating

AbstractThe Postclassic period in central Mexico was characterized by enormous population growth and expansion of settlement, but the timing of the onset of these processes has been poorly understood. Obsidian tools from residential contexts at the Late Postclassic village of Cihuatecpan in the Teotihuacan Valley have been analyzed to determine the extent of hydration, and thus the amount of time elapsed since the tools were manufactured. Estimated dates of manufacture range betweena.d.1221 and 1568, consistent with ethnohistoric accounts of the timing of establishment of Cihuatecpan and other rural villages, and their abandonment in the Early Colonial period. Ceramics found in the same contexts as the obsidian tools include Black-on-orange types, such as III, which may have come into use in the thirteenth century. This experiment in relative and absolute dating accords with other current research, indicating a needed revision of traditional chronologies toward an earlier onset of major processes.

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