Ancient Mesoamerica News Updates 2011, No. 29: Mexico City - Series of Conferences That Accompanied the Exhibit "Six Cities Ancient Mesoamerica" \u200b\u200bBegins
Yesterday, Friday May 13, 2011, the National Institutes of Anthropology and History (INAH) Began the series of conferences That Accompanied the exhibit "Six Cities." The exhibit is extended to August 2011 and is Shown at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Each Friday afternoon in May and June, Starting at 12.00 hrs., A conference will Be held in the Auditorium Tlaloc of the National Museum of Anthropology (MNA). The entrance to These conferences is free. Following the INAH posted the bulletin after the first conference by Diana Magaloni, director of the MNA, on the "Sacred Mountains" at the center of Each of the six cities (edited by amanu):
prehispanic pyramids represent foundational myth - The majestic pyramids of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Los Niches, El Tajin, and the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, are clear examples of symbolic representation the prehispanic people did the myth of the "Holy Mountain", the which refers to the beginning of all time, a creative partner, joining forces made earth emerge from the depths of the ocean, a large hill. Diana explained this
Magaloni, director of the National Museum of Anthropology (MNA), to provide the first conference that began the lecture series "Six Ancient Towns of Central America," which takes place in a complementary manner to the exposure of same name that appears on this site the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
By way of preamble, on the mythical story that supported the worldview of pre-Columbian peoples, the restoration and said the start line of the six ancient cities on which the statement relates, Monte Alban, Palenque, Teotihuacan, The Tajin, Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, whose developments were from a large temple on a mountain: the pyramid.
"As synthetic and symbolic reflection of the ordering principles of the gods, each of the cities built large temples in the form of mountains, sometimes built on a spring or a cave, this according to origin myths Nahua, Maya Zapotec and Mixtec, respectively.
"The foundational myth that at the beginning of time everything was dark and quiet, the sky and water were joined by a silent chaos, nothing moved and there was no sunlight, all traditions also refer to a creative partner that to join forces made earth emerge from the depths of the ocean like a great mountain.
"So Mesoamerican cities represented the idea of \u200b\u200bthe great mountain alive through large pyramidal structures, reproductions of the 'First City', a symbol of fertility, renewal and abundance." Magaloni
explained that the truncated pyramids, sunken plazas, caves and mountain scenery on the horizon, are elements that construct a narrative in which each city is embedded in the mythic time for endless recreation, to legitimize power and to express membership of the inhabitants of the established order by the gods. To
the director of the Museum of Anthropology need to incorporate this story intangible, as they did at the time our ancestors, generation after generation, because, he said, "The real breakthrough after the English conquest in our minds, so these exhibitions serve to remove our origin.
"The Mesoamerican cities are places where the times of this historic and perennial stories are myths, and stories that portray the myths, that is the reason for the 'Holy Mountain' with their holy city, are centers that link the past and the present, as a parenthesis.
"They are symbolic acts / rituals that transformed the landscape into a conceptual construction of the habitat, which is the city itself and its sacred grounds. "
This belief system, detailed, study was made possible from the monuments themselves and their iconography, and the reading of the creation myths collected and transcribed into the Latin alphabet in the sixteenth century, among them manuscripts such as Vaticanus, the Rivers, or the sacred Mayan book Popol Vuh.
is how scholars know that the ancient Mesoamerican cities were built along the lines of a thought common to all indigenous peoples of the past but with their own space and time. Diana
Magaloni myths referred to as one included in the Popol Vuh, which describes the supreme creative force and an elderly couple called Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, the Mixtec myth naming the couple as the unit "A deer" Nahua myths call the principle dual Ometéotl, "God Two" or "God of Duality."
Referring to Monte Alban, located in the valley of Oaxaca, said the concept was amplified here because all the big city is the Mountain of Dawn of the ruling lineages, 200 years BC the inhabitants had accomplished the feat of construction engineering Having cut and flattened the top of the mountain to build the great central plaza and various buildings.
"Monte Alban is the dream referred to in the codices, about which the gods live in the axis, in their palaces, at the top of the hills. Translates the myth of origin between the sacred mountain to the palaces above it, because they express the myths Mixtec and Zapotec in urban planning. "
In Palenque, Chiapas, the Temple of Inscriptions is embedded in the mountains and reproduced, in Teotihuacan, the Pyramid of the Sun was equipped with a channel around it, so that in times of water that seems to float in the ocean the first time, moreover, the Pyramid of the Moon resembles the shape and channel the power of Cerro Gordo behind It also serves to guide the north-south axis which lies to the entire city.
At El Tajin, Veracruz, the city is oriented towards the hill called the Maintenance and in Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, Mexico City, were built on the waters of Lake Texcoco, so that their temples and buildings were the live image creation time and order of the cosmos.
The lecture series will continue every Friday in May and June at 12:00 pm in the Auditorium Tlaloc National Anthropology Museum (Reforma and Gandhi, Bosque de Chapultepec). Admission is free. The next conference will be devoted to Monte Alban by archaeologist Nelly Robles, director Oaxaca INAH Center. (Source INAH)
Studying ancient petroglyphs of the Costa Grande - Through the use of photographic filters recently applied to images of petroglyphs that are distributed along the Costa Grande of Guerrero, specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have been able to confirm the presence of anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, points and bars that served to counts that were recorded for thousands of years in the rocks and not visible to the naked eye. The researcher Ruben Manzanilla López, of the Directorate INAH Archaeological Salvage, said in the statement Guerrero is no record of more than 800 engraved rocks, and its largest presence is seen in the Costa Grande region, whose estimated age of 3000 BC to 750 AD, and where more than two decades the study carried out the rock art. La Costa Grande of Guerrero is a region covering over 300 miles long, between the bay of Acapulco in Guerrero and the mouth of the Balsas River within the limits of Michoacán. "The archaeological work in this area began in 1986 when he toured the area, which was a simple report with photographs and handmade background where some petroglyphs were interpreted, particularly Zihuatanejo.