HIST 309 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Altepetl, Codex Borbonicus, Otomi People
16 Dec 2017
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Three large areas: southern highlands, central jungle lowlands, northern yucatan lowlands. Writing and numbers; developed and complex; kind of hieroglyphs; counted in base 20, cycle of 52 years, 20 months per year. Strong influence from the teotihuacan in the early classic (architecture, exchanged objects, inscriptions on public monuments, human bones); bridge between olmecs and mayas; leader of copan was from teotihuacan. Things start breaking down and populations move north to form the post-classic maya cities not as well developed in the arts. Rarely practiced sacrifices; leaders would bloodlet to communicate with the gods private ritual. Temples had nots of layers leaders wanted to show power, strength, wealth by building another layer. Palenque later in the classic era; build and designed later more defensive; the whole area was getting paranoid. Teotihuacan went from in 650 having 125,000 people, 750 only 30000. Causes: external invasions, internal revolts, growth of commercial cities; soil exhaustion.
