Download or read book The Festival Cycle of the Aztec Codex Borbonicus written by N. C. Christopher Couch and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Festival Cycle of the Aztec Codex Borbonicus written by N. C. Christopher Couch and published by BAR International Series. This book was released on 1985 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (BAR -S270, 1985)
Download or read book Aztec Codices written by Lori Boornazian Diel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the migration of the Aztecs to the rise of the empire and its eventual demise, this book covers Aztec history in full, analyzing conceptions of time, religion, and more through codices to offer an inside look at daily life. This book focuses on two main areas: Aztec history and Aztec culture. Early chapters deal with Aztec history—the first providing a visual record of the story of the Aztec migration and search for their destined homeland of Tenochtitlan, and the second exploring how the Aztecs built their empire. Later chapters explain life in the Aztec world, focusing on Aztec conceptions of time and religion, the Aztec economy, the life cycle, and daily life. The book ends with an account of the fall of the empire, as illustrated by Aztec artists. With sections concerning a wide variety of topics—from the Aztec pantheon to war, agriculture, childhood, marriage, diet, justice, the arts, and sports, among many others—readers will gain an expansive understanding of life in the Aztec world.
Download or read book Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate written by Elizabeth Hill Boone and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2013-05-17 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In communities throughout precontact Mesoamerica, calendar priests and diviners relied on pictographic almanacs to predict the fate of newborns, to guide people in choosing marriage partners and auspicious wedding dates, to know when to plant and harvest crops, and to be successful in many of life's activities. As the Spanish colonized Mesoamerica in the sixteenth century, they made a determined effort to destroy these books, in which the Aztec and neighboring peoples recorded their understanding of the invisible world of the sacred calendar and the cosmic forces and supernaturals that adhered to time. Today, only a few of these divinatory codices survive. Visually complex, esoteric, and strikingly beautiful, painted books such as the famous Codex Borgia and Codex Borbonicus still serve as portals into the ancient Mexican calendrical systems and the cycles of time and meaning they encode. In this comprehensive study, Elizabeth Hill Boone analyzes the entire extant corpus of Mexican divinatory codices and offers a masterful explanation of the genre as a whole. She introduces the sacred, divinatory calendar and the calendar priests and diviners who owned and used the books. Boone then explains the graphic vocabulary of the calendar and its prophetic forces and describes the organizing principles that structure the codices. She shows how they form almanacs that either offer general purpose guidance or focus topically on specific aspects of life, such as birth, marriage, agriculture and rain, travel, and the forces of the planet Venus. Boone also tackles two major areas of controversy—the great narrative passage in the Codex Borgia, which she freshly interprets as a cosmic narrative of creation, and the disputed origins of the codices, which, she argues, grew out of a single religious and divinatory system.
Download or read book Aztecs written by Inga Clendinnen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-15 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recreates the culture of the city of Tenochtitlan in its last unthreatened years before it fell to the Spaniards.
Download or read book The Codex Borbonicus Veintena Imagery written by CATHERINE. DICESARE and published by . This book was released on 2024-09-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sixteenth-century pictorial manuscript known as the Codex Borbonicus contains a remarkable record of the eighteen Mexica (or "Aztec") festival periods of twenty days, known as veintenas, celebrated during the 365-day solar year. Because its indigenous artists framed the Borbonicus veintenas with historical year dates, this volume situates the annually recurring rituals within the march of linear, reckoned time, in the singular year "2 Reed" (1507), during the reign of Moteuczoma II. DiCesare attends to the historical dimensions of several unusual scenes, proposing that the veintenas probably varied significantly from year to year in response to historical concerns. She considers particularly whether the Borbonicus veintenas document the confluence of solar year ceremonies with a second set of ritual feast days, governed by the 260-day cycle known as the tonalpohualli, or "count of days." In this way, DiCesare analyzes how "linear" and "cyclical" conceptions of time intersected in Mexica ritual performance.
Download or read book The Fifteenth Month written by John F. Schwaller and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mexica (Aztecs) used a solar calendar made up of eighteen months, with each month dedicated to a specific god in their pantheon and celebrated with a different set of rituals. Panquetzaliztli, the fifteenth month, dedicated to the national god Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird on the Left), was significant for its proximity to the winter solstice, and for the fact that it marked the beginning of the season of warfare. In The Fifteenth Month, John F. Schwaller offers a detailed look at how the celebrations of Panquetzaliztli changed over time and what these changes reveal about the history of the Aztecs. Drawing on a variety of sources, Schwaller deduces that prior to the rise of the Mexica in 1427, an earlier version of the month was dedicated to the god Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), a war and trickster god. The Mexica shifted the dedication to their god, developed a series of ceremonies—including long-distance running and human sacrifice—that would associate him with the sun, and changed the emphasis of the celebration from warfare alone to a combination of trade and warfare, since merchants played a significant role in Mexica statecraft. Further investigation shows how the resulting festival commemorated several important moments in Mexica history, how it came to include ceremonies associated with the winter solstice, and how it reflected a calendar reform implemented shortly before the arrival of the Spanish. Focused on one of the most important months in the Mexica year, Schwaller’s work marks a new methodology in which traditional sources for Mexica culture, rather than being interrogated for their specific content, are read for their insights into the historical development of the people. Just as Christmas re-creates the historic act of the birth of Jesus for Christians, so, The Fifteenth Month suggests, Panquetzaliztli was a symbolic re-creation of events from Mexica myths and history.
Download or read book Time History and Belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico written by Ross Hassig and published by Univ of TX + ORM. This book was released on 2013-12-18 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illuminating study offers a radical new understanding of how the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican societies conceived of time and history. Based on their enormously complex calendars that recorded cycles of many kinds, the Aztecs and other ancient Mesoamerican civilizations are generally believed to have had a cyclical, rather than linear, conception of time and history. This boldly revisionist book challenges that understanding. Ross Hassig offers convincing evidence that for the Aztecs time was predominantly linear, that it was manipulated by the state as a means of controlling a dispersed tribute empire, and that the Conquest cut off state control and severed the unity of the calendar, leaving only the lesser cycles. From these, he asserts, we have inadequately reconstructed the pre-Columbian calendar and so misunderstood the Aztec conception of time and history. Hassig first presents the traditional explanation of the Aztec calendrical system and its ideological functions and then marshals contrary evidence to argue that the Aztec elite deliberately used calendars and timekeeping to achieve practical political ends. He further traces how the Conquest played out in the temporal realm as Spanish conceptions of time partially displaced the Aztec ones.
Download or read book Circa 1492 written by Jean Michel Massing and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 684 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys the art of the Age of Exploration in Europe, the Far East, and the Americas
Download or read book Mesoamerican Religions and Archaeology written by Aleksandar Bošković and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main goal of this book is to produce a methodologically sound and ethically valid interdisciplinary introduction into the exciting world of ancient Mesoamerica.
Download or read book Tlacuilolli written by Karl Anton Nowotny and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appearing for the first time in English, Karl Anton Nowotny’s Tlacuilolli is a classic work of Mesoamerican scholarship. A concise analysis of the pre-Columbian Borgia Group of manuscripts, it is the only synthetic interpretation of divinatory and ritual codices from Mexico. Originally published in German and unavailable to any but the most determined scholars, Tlacuilolli has nevertheless formed the foundation for subsequent scholarly works on the codices. Its importance extends beyond the study of Mexican codices: Nowotny’s sophisticated reading of these manuscripts informs our understanding of Mesoamerican culture. Of particular importance are Nowotny’s corrections of errors in fact and interpretation in the Spanish edition of Eduard Seler’s commentary on the Borgia Group. George A. Everett and Edward B. Sisson have translated Nowotny’s masterwork into English while maintaining the flavor of the original German edition. To the core text they have added an extensive bibliography and constructed a framework of annotation that relates the principles in Tlacuilolli to current research. This edition includes a selection of eleven stunning full-color images chosen from the original catalog.
Download or read book Sacred Consumption written by Elizabeth Morán and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making a foundational contribution to Mesoamerican studies, this book explores Aztec painted manuscripts and sculptures, as well as indigenous and colonial Spanish texts, to offer the first integrated study of food and ritual in Aztec art. Aztec painted manuscripts and sculptural works, as well as indigenous and Spanish sixteenth-century texts, were filled with images of foodstuffs and food processing and consumption. Both gods and humans were depicted feasting, and food and eating clearly played a pervasive, integral role in Aztec rituals. Basic foods were transformed into sacred elements within particular rituals, while food in turn gave meaning to the ritual performance. This pioneering book offers the first integrated study of food and ritual in Aztec art. Elizabeth Morán asserts that while feasting and consumption are often seen as a secondary aspect of ritual performance, a close examination of images of food rites in Aztec ceremonies demonstrates that the presence—or, in some cases, the absence—of food in the rituals gave them significance. She traces the ritual use of food from the beginning of Aztec mythic history through contact with Europeans, demonstrating how food and ritual activity, the everyday and the sacred, blended in ceremonies that ranged from observances of births, marriages, and deaths to sacrificial offerings of human hearts and blood to feed the gods and maintain the cosmic order. Morán also briefly considers continuities in the use of pre-Hispanic foods in the daily life and ritual practices of contemporary Mexico. Bringing together two domains that have previously been studied in isolation, Sacred Consumption promises to be a foundational work in Mesoamerican studies.
Download or read book The Spanish Empire 2 volumes written by H. Micheal Tarver and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-07-25 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through reference entries and primary documents, this book surveys a wide range of topics related to the history of the Spanish Empire, including past events and individuals as well as the Iberian kingdom's imperial legacy. The Spanish Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia provides students as well as anyone interested in Spain, Latin America, or empires in general the necessary materials to explore and better understand the centuries-long empire of the Iberian kingdom. The work is organized around eight themes to allow the reader the ability to explore each theme through an overview essay and several selected encyclopedic entries. This two-volume set includes some 180 entries that cover such topics as the caste system, dynastic rivalries, economics, major political events and players, and wars of independence. The entries provide students with essential information about the people, things, institutions, places, and events central to the history of the empire. Many of the entries also include short sidebars that highlight key facts or present fascinating and relevant trivia. Additional resources include an introductory overview, chronology, extended bibliography, and extensive collection of primary source documents.
Download or read book The Fate of Earthly Things written by Molly H. Bassett and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-01-30 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Bassett at last provides a path to understand better the specifically Aztec characteristics of the teteoh and their ritual ‘embodiments.’” —Ethnohistory Following their first contact in 1519, accounts of Aztecs identifying Spaniards as gods proliferated. But what exactly did the Aztecs mean by a “god” (teotl), and how could human beings become gods or take on godlike properties? This sophisticated, interdisciplinary study analyzes three concepts that are foundational to Aztec religion—teotl (god), teixiptla (localized embodiment of a god), and tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles containing precious objects)—to shed new light on the Aztec understanding of how spiritual beings take on form and agency in the material world. In The Fate of Earthly Things, Molly Bassett draws on ethnographic fieldwork, linguistic analyses, visual culture, and ritual studies to explore what ritual practices such as human sacrifice and the manufacture of deity embodiments (including humans who became gods), material effigies, and sacred bundles meant to the Aztecs. She analyzes the Aztec belief that wearing the flayed skin of a sacrificial victim during a sacred rite could transform a priest into an embodiment of a god or goddess, as well as how figurines and sacred bundles could become localized embodiments of gods. Without arguing for unbroken continuity between the Aztecs and modern speakers of Nahuatl, Bassett also describes contemporary rituals in which indigenous Mexicans who preserve costumbres (traditions) incorporate totiotzin (gods) made from paper into their daily lives. This research allows us to understand a religious imagination that found life in death and believed that deity embodiments became animate through the ritual binding of blood, skin, and bone.
Download or read book Interpreting Child Sacrifice Narratives written by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-03-23 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the theme of child sacrifice as a psychological challenge, this book applies a unique approach to religious ideas by looking at beliefs and practices that are considered deviant, but also make up part of mainstream religious discourse in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Ancient religious mythology, which survives through living traditions and transmitted narratives, rituals, and writings, is filled with violent stories, often involving the targeting of children as ritual victims. Christianity offers Abraham's sacrifice and assures us that the “only begotten son” has died, and then been resurrected. This version of the sacrifice myth has dominated the West. It is celebrated in an act of fantasy cannibalism, in which the believers share the divine son's flesh and blood. This book makes the connection between Satanism stories in the 1980s, the Blood Libel in Europe, The Eucharist, and Eastern Mediterranean narratives of child sacrifice.
Download or read book Descendants of Aztec Pictography written by Elizabeth Hill Boone and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2023-09-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of the sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of Mexico, Spanish friars and authorities partnered with indigenous rulers and savants to gather detailed information on Aztec history, religious beliefs, and culture. The pictorial books they created served the Spanish as aids to evangelization and governance, but their content came from the native intellectuals, painters, and writers who helped to create them. Examining the nine major surviving texts, preeminent Latin American art historian Elizabeth Hill Boone explores how indigenous artists and writers documented their ancestral culture. Analyzing the texts as one distinct corpus, Boone shows how they combined European and indigenous traditions of documentation and considers questions of motive, authorship, and audience. For Spanish authorities, she shows, the books revealed Aztec ideology and practice, while for the indigenous community, they preserved venerated ways of pictorial expression as well as rhetorical and linguistic features of ancient discourses. The first comparative analysis of these encyclopedias, Descendants of Aztec Pictography analyzes how the painted compilations embraced artistic traditions from both sides of the Atlantic.
Download or read book Primeros Memoriales written by Bernardino de Sahagún and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Primeros Memoriales is here published for the first time in its entirety both in the original Nahuatl and in English translation. The volume follows the manuscript order reconstructed for the Primeros Memoriales by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso in his 1905-1907 facsimile edition of the collection of Sahaguntine manuscripts he called Codices Matritenses. During the 1960s, Thelma D. Sullivan, a Nahuatl scholar living in Mexico, began a paleographic transcription of the Primeros Memoriales, along with an English translation. After Sullivan's death in 1981, a group of her colleagues finished, enlarged, and annotated her project. This long-awaited publication makes available to specialists and interested laypersons alike an invaluable portion of the remarkable Sahaguntine treasure of information on sixteenth-century Aztec society.
