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Mesoamerican Calendars
Mesoamerican calendars are the calendrical systems devised and used by the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica. Besides keeping time, Mesoamerican calendars were also used in religious observances and social rituals, such as for divination. The existence of Mesoamerican calendars is known as early as ca. 500 BCE, with the essentials already appearing fully defined and functional. These calendars are still used in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. The importance of aboriginal calendars in ritual and other aspects of Mesoamerican life was noted by many missionary priests, travelers, and colonial administrators, and later by ethnographers who described and recorded the cultures of contemporary Mesoamerican ethnic groups. Types of calendars Among the various calendar systems in use, two were particularly central and widespread across Mesoamerica. Common to all recorded Mesoamerican cultures, and the most important, was the 260-day calendar, a ritual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monte Alban Stela 12 & 13
Monte may refer to: Places Argentina * Argentine Monte, an ecoregion * Monte Desert * Monte Partido, a ''partido'' in Buenos Aires Province Italy * Monte Bregagno * Monte Cassino * Montecorvino (other) * Montefalcione Portugal * Monte (Funchal), a civil parish in the municipality of Funchal * Monte, a civil parish in the municipality of Fafe * Monte, a civil parish in the municipality of Murtosa * Monte, a civil parish in the municipality of Terras de Bouro Elsewhere * Monte, Haute-Corse, a commune in Corsica, France * Monte, Switzerland, a village in the municipality Castel San Pietro, Ticino, Switzerland * Monte, U.S. Virgin Islands, a neighborhood * Monte Lake, British Columbia, Canada Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Monte'' (film), a 2016 drama film by Amir Naderi * Three-card Monte * Monte Bank or Monte, a card game Other uses * Monte (dessert) a milk cream dessert produced by the German dairy company Zott * Monte (mascot), the mascot of the Universi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Year
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked. A calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earth's orbital period, as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian calendar, or modern calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar, the average length of the calendar year (t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zapotec Civilization
The Zapotec civilization ( "The People"; 700 BC–1521 AD) was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows that their culture originated at least 2,500 years ago. The Zapotec archaeological site at the ancient city of Monte Albán has monumental buildings, ball courts, magnificent tombs and grave goods, including finely worked gold jewelry. Monte Albán was one of the first major cities in Mesoamerica. It was the center of a Zapotec state that dominated much of the territory which today is known as the Mexican state of Oaxaca. History Zapotec civilization originated in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca in the late 6th century BC. The three valleys were divided among three different-sized societies, separated by “no-man’s-land” in the middle. The city of Oaxaca much later developed in that area. Archaeological evidence, such as burned temples and sacrificed war captives, suggests that t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zapotec Writing
The Zapotec script is the writing system of the Zapotec culture and represents one of the earliest writing systems in Mesoamerica. Rising in the late Pre-Classic era after the decline of the Olmec civilization, the Zapotecs of present-day Oaxaca built an empire around Monte Albán. One characteristic of Monte Albán is the large number of carved stone monuments one encounters throughout the plaza. There and at other sites, archaeologists have found extended text in a glyphic script. Some signs can be recognized as calendar information but the script as such remains undeciphered (if not undecipherable). Read in columns from top to bottom, its execution is somewhat cruder than that of the later Maya script and this has led epigraphers to believe that the script was also less phonetic than the largely syllabic Maya. According to Urcid (2005), the script was originally a logo-syllabic system and was probably developed for an ancient version of contemporary Zapotecan languages, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olmecs
The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures. The Olmecs flourished during Mesoamerica's formative period, dating roughly from as early as 1500 BCE to about 400 BCE. Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished since about 2500 BCE, but by 1600–1500 BCE, early Olmec culture had emerged, centered on the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán site near the coast in southeast Veracruz. They were the first Mesoamerican civilization, and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed. Among other "firsts", the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The aspect of the Olmecs most famil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olmec Hieroglyphs
Olmec hieroglyphs (alternatively Olmec glyphs, Olmec writing, or Olmec script) designate a possible system of writing or proto-writing developed within the Olmec culture. The Olmecs were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing during the formative period (1500 BCE to 400 BCE) in the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. The subsequent Epi-Olmec culture (300 BCE to 250 CE), was a successor culture to the Olmec and featured a full-fledged writing system, the Isthmian (or Epi-Olmec) script. The existence of a writing system in Middle and Late Olmec periods has been a matter of long-standing debate. Direct evidence includes the appearance of individual (potential) glyphs as well as the singleton Cascajal Block that bears a potential text. Indirect evidence includes similarities in calendar and writing systems between subsequent Mesoamerican cultures, for which the Olmecs are sometimes considered a mother culture. Perio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with their associated islands, the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River–Great Lakes basin, Mississippi, and La Plata. Since the Americas extend from north to south, the climate and ecology vary widely, from the arctic tundra of Northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, to the tropical rain forests in Central America and South America. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago. A second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meso-
A meso compound or meso isomer is a non-optically active member of a set of stereoisomers, at least two of which are optically active. This means that despite containing two or more stereocenters, the molecule is not chiral. A meso compound is "superposable" on its mirror image (not to be confused with superimposable, as any two objects can be superimposed over one another regardless of whether they are the same). Two objects can be superposed if all aspects of the objects coincide and it does not produce a "(+)" or "(-)" reading when analyzed with a polarimeter. The name is derived from the Greek ''mésos'' meaning “middle”. For example, tartaric acid can exist as any of three stereoisomers depicted below in a Fischer projection. Of the four colored pictures at the top of the diagram, the first two represent the meso compound (the 2'' R'',3'' S'' and 2'' S'',3'' R'' isomers are equivalent), followed by the optically active pair of levotartaric acid (L-(''R,R'')-(+)-tartaric ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Language
Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Culture Area
In anthropology and geography, a cultural region, cultural sphere, cultural area or culture area refers to a geography with one relatively homogeneous human activity or complex of activities (culture). Such activities are often associated with an ethnolinguistic group and with the territory it inhabits. Specific cultures often do not limit their geographic coverage to the borders of a nation state, or to smaller subdivisions of a state. Cultural "spheres of influence" may also overlap or form concentric structures of macrocultures encompassing smaller local cultures. Different boundaries may also be drawn depending on the particular aspect of interest, such as religion and folklore ''vs''. dress and architecture ''vs''. language. History of concept A culture area is a concept in cultural anthropology in which a geographic region and time sequence ( age area) is characterized by substantially uniform environment and culture.ee also Americas (terminology)***Caribbean ***C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Kirchoff
Paul Kirchhoff (17 August 1900, Halle, Province of Westphalia – 9 December 1972) was a German-Mexican anthropologist, most noted for his seminal work in defining and elaborating the culture area of Mesoamerica, a term he coined. Early life and academic career Paul Kirchhoff was born in the German locality of Hörste, in the region of Westphalia. He commenced his undergraduate studies in Protestant theology and comparative religion at the University of Berlin, moving later to Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg. In the mid-1920s he undertook further studies at the University of Leipzig in ethnology and psychology, where he first developed his abiding interest in the indigenous cultures of the Americas. completing his studies in 1927. In 1928, he left for the United States. There, as a student of Edward Sapir, he studied the Navajo language until 1930. By 1931 he had returned to Germany to defend his thesis. He was the co-founder of Mexico's National School of Anthropo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vigesimal
vigesimal () or base-20 (base-score) numeral system is based on twenty (in the same way in which the decimal numeral system is based on ten). '' Vigesimal'' is derived from the Latin adjective '' vicesimus'', meaning 'twentieth'. Places In a vigesimal place system, twenty individual numerals (or digit symbols) are used, ten more than in the usual decimal system. One modern method of finding the extra needed symbols is to write ten as the letter (the 20 means base ), to write nineteen as , and the numbers between with the corresponding letters of the alphabet. This is similar to the common computer-science practice of writing hexadecimal numerals over 9 with the letters "A–F". Another less common method skips over the letter "I", in order to avoid confusion between I20 as eighteen and one, so that the number eighteen is written as J20, and nineteen is written as K20. The number twenty is written as . According to this notation: : is equivalent to forty in decimal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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