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Epi-Olmec Culture
The Epi-Olmec culture was a cultural area in the central region of the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz. Concentrated in the Papaloapan River basin, a culture that existed during the Late Formative period, from roughly 300 BCE to roughly 250 CE. Epi-Olmec was a successor culture to the Olmec, hence the prefix "epi-" or "post-". Although Epi-Olmec did not attain the far-reaching achievements of that earlier culture, it did realize, with its sophisticated calendrics and writing system, a level of cultural complexity unknown to the Olmecs. Tres Zapotes and eventually Cerro de las Mesas were the largest Epi-Olmec centers though neither would reach the size and importance of the great Olmec cities before them nor El Tajín after them. Other Epi-Olmec sites of note include El Mesón, Lerdo de Tejada, La Mojarra, Bezuapan, and Chuniapan de Abajo. Cultural context The rise of the Epi-Olmec culture on the western edge of the Olmec heartland coincides with the depopulation o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epi-Olmec Cultural Area
Epi-Olmec ("post-Olmec") may refer to: *Epi-Olmec culture, pre-Columbian archaeological culture/area in the coastal Veracruz region of Mexico, ca. 300BCE–250CE *Isthmian script, also known as Epi-Olmec script, a Mesoamerican writing system Contrast with *Olmec, earlier and distinct Mesoamerican archaeological culture and tradition, dating ca. 1200–400 BCE *Olmeca-Xicalanca, a Mesoamerican culture living in Mexico's Veracruz and Tabasco regions at the time of the 16thC Spanish conquest {{disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tuxtla Statuette
The Tuxtla Statuette is a small 6.3 inch (16 cm) rounded greenstone (archaeology), greenstone figurine, carved to resemble a squat, bullet-shaped human with a duck-like bill and wings. Most researchers believe the statuette represents a shaman wearing a bird mask and bird cloak. It is incised with 75 glyph (archaeology), glyphs of the Epi-Olmec script, Epi-Olmec or Isthmian script, one of the few extant examples of this very early Mesoamerican writing system. The human face carved into the stone is unremarkable except for the long bill that extends down to chest level. This bill has been identified as belonging to the boat-billed heron, a locally abundant bird along the Tabasco and southern Veracruz Gulf Coast. Raised wings or a wing-like cape envelop the body while feet have been incised into the base. The Tuxtla Statuette is particularly notable in that its glyphs include the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar date of March 162 Common Era, CE, which in 1902 was the o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Mojarra Stela 1
La Mojarra Stela 1 is a Mesoamerican carved monument ( stela) dating from 156 CE (2nd century CE). It was discovered in 1986, pulled from the Acula River near La Mojarra, Veracruz, Mexico, not far from the Tres Zapotes archaeological site. The by , four- ton limestone slab contains about 535 glyphs of the Isthmian script. One of Mesoamerica's earliest known written records, this Epi-Olmec culture monument not only recorded this ruler's achievements, but placed them within a cosmological framework of calendars and astronomical events. The right side of the stone features a full-length portrait of a man in an elaborate headdress and costume, although the bottom half of the carving is very badly weathered. Above the figure, 12 short columns of glyphs have been etched into the stone, matched by eight longer columns to the figure's right. Among these glyphs are two Mesoamerican Long Count calendar dates which correspond to May 143 CE and July 156 CE. The monument is an early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epi-Olmec Script
The Isthmian script is an early set of symbols found in inscriptions around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, dating to , though with dates subject to disagreement. It is also called the La Mojarra script and the Epi-Olmec script ('post-Olmec script'). It has not been conclusively determined whether Isthmian script is a true writing system that represents a spoken language, or is a system of proto-writing. According to a disputed partial decipherment, it is structurally similar to the Maya script, and like Maya uses one set of characters to represent morphemes, and a second set to represent syllables. Recovered texts The four most extensive Isthmian texts are those found on: * The La Mojarra Stela 1 * The Tuxtla Statuette * Tres Zapotes Stela C * A Teotihuacan-style mask Other texts include: * A few Isthmian glyphs on four badly weathered stelae — 5, 6, 8, and probably 15 — at Cerro de las Mesas. * Approximately 23 glyphs on the O'Boyle "mask", a clay artifact of unknown prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerican Writing Systems
Mesoamerica, along with Mesopotamia and China, is one of three known places in the world where writing is thought to have developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic systems. They are often called hieroglyphs due to the iconic shapes of many of the glyphs, a pattern superficially similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Fifteen distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription. The limits of archaeological dating methods make it difficult to establish which was the earliest and hence the progenitor from which the others developed. The best documented and deciphered Mesoamerican writing system, and the most widely known, is the classic Maya script. Earlier scripts with poorer and varying levels of decipherment include the Olmec hieroglyphs, the Zapotec script, and the Isthmian script, all of which date back to the 1st millennium BC. An extensive Mesoamerican lite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olmec Colossal Heads
The Olmec colossal heads are stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. They range in height from . The heads date from at least 900 BCE and are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica.Diehl 2004, p. 111. All portray mature individuals with fleshy cheeks, flat noses, and slightly-crossed eyes; their physical characteristics correspond to a type that is still common among the inhabitants of Tabasco and Veracruz. The backs of the monuments are often flat. The boulders were brought from the Sierra de Los Tuxtlas mountains of Veracruz. Given that the extremely large slabs of stone used in their production were transported more than , requiring a great deal of human effort and resources, it is thought that the monuments represent portraits of powerful individual Olmec rulers. Each of the known examples has a distinctive headdress. The heads were variously arranged in lines or groups at major Olmec centres, but the method a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stela
A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stelas ( ). is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on the battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle. A traditional Wester ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isthmus Of Tehuantepec
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the Tehuantepec Route. The name is taken from the town of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca; this was derived from the Nahuatl term (" jaguar mountain"). Geography The isthmus includes the part of Mexico lying between the 94th and 96th meridians west longitude, or the southeastern parts of Veracruz and Oaxaca, including small areas of Chiapas and Tabasco. The states of Tabasco and Chiapas are east of the isthmus, with Veracruz and Oaxaca on the west. At its narrowest point, the isthmus is across from gulf to gulf, or to the head of Laguna Superior on the Pacific coast. The Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range breaks down at this point into a broad, plateau-like ridge, whose elevation, at the highest point reached by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greenstone (archaeology)
Greenstone is a common generic term for valuable, green-hued minerals and metamorphosed igneous rocks and stones which early cultures used in the fashioning of hardstone carvings such as jewelry, statuettes, ritual tools, and various other artifacts. Greenstone artifacts may be made of greenschist, chlorastrolite, serpentine, omphacite, chrysoprase, olivine, nephrite, chloromelanite among other green-hued minerals. The term also includes jade and jadeite, although these are perhaps more frequently identified by these latter terms. The greenish hue of these rocks generally derives from the presence of minerals such as chlorite, hornblende, or epidote.Kipfer (2000, p.218) Greenstone minerals were presumably selected for their color rather than their chemical composition. In archaeology therefore, having a loosely applied general term is at least partially influenced by the observation that ancient cultures often used and considered these various green-hued materials as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and northwestern part of Costa Rica. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. In the pre-Columbian era, many Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous societies flourished in Mesoamerica for more than 3,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas began on Hispaniola in 1493. In world history, Mesoamerica was the site of two historical transformations: (i) primary urban generation, and (ii) the formation of New World cultures from the mixtures of the indigenous Mesoamerican peoples with the European, African, and Asian peoples who were introduced by the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wattle-and-daub
Wattle and daub is a composite building method in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called " wattle" is "daubed" with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, and straw. Wattle and daub has been used for at least 6,000 years and is still an important construction method in many parts of the world. Many historic buildings include wattle and daub construction. History The wattle and daub technique has been used since the Neolithic period. It was common for houses of Linear pottery and Rössen cultures of middle Europe, but is also found in Western Asia (Çatalhöyük, Shillourokambos) as well as in North America (Mississippian culture) and South America (Brazil). In Africa it is common in the architecture of traditional houses such as those of the Ashanti people. Its usage dates back at least 6,000 years. There are suggestions that construction techniques such as lath and plaster and even cob may have evolved from wattle and daub. Fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
