George L. Cowgill Ý 0 read & download
This is the first comprehensive English-language book on the largest city in the Americas before the 1400s. Teotihuacan is a UNESCO world heritage site, located in highland central Mexico, about twenty-five miles from Mexico City, visited by millions of tourists every year. The book begins with Cuicuilco, a predecessor that arose around 400 BCE, then traces Teotihuacan from its founding in approximately 150 BCE to its collapse around 600 CE. It describes the city's immense pyramids and other elite structures. It also discusses the dwellings and daily lives of commoners, including men, women, and children, and the craft activities of artisans. George L. Cowgill discusses politics, economics, technology, art, religion, and possible reasons for Teotihuacan's rise and fall. Long before the Aztecs and 800 miles from Classic Maya centers, Teotihuacan was part of a broad Mesoamerican tradition but had a distinctive personality that invites comparison with other states and empires of the ancient world. Ancient Teotihuacan: Early Urbanism in Central Mexico
Full of facts but hard to read.
With an upcoming archeological tour to Teotihuacan, I got this book for background. It is densely packed with facts and details of the excavation history of this very famous ruin near Mexico City, visited by more tourists annually than any other ancient Mexican site. Most of what archeologists know about Teotihuacan comes from ceramics studies, since the ancient culture left no writing. Excavations of buildings along with ceramic dating gives a historic time line that spans 100 BC to 650 AD. From analyzing buildings, archeologists learned this was a multi-ethnic culture with distinct residential complexes, early collective governance that evolved into sets of dominant individuals who created immense pyramids and avenues lined with palaces. Teotihuacan earned the title empire and spread influence to the west and south as far as Guatemala and Honduras, where they overthrew local Maya rulers and set up new dynasties.
Eventually this great civilization declined, probably due to expanding elites culling off flows of wealth and labor and reducing central authority. Climate changes, volcanic eruptions, drought, and diminishing food resources added stresses and the city was mostly abandoned after 700 AD. Its elites moved elsewhere and influenced subsequent cultures including Totonac, Toltec, and Aztec.
Only a determined reader who really wants to learn about this ancient culture will plow through the dense prose and unending stream of facts. Organizing the material in a more reader-friendly way would help. Plowing through pages of ceramic sequences often put me to sleep. But if you're a Mesoamerica archeological buff, you will learn a great deal from this well-researched and thorough book.
0521690447 A solid, mostly readable academic summary of what we know about Teotihuacan archaeology. Not gonna lie, the book is pretty dry. Definitely written for students of archaeology and can be a bit numbing in its thoroughness. But it's also very clearly written and well organized. I feel having read it I know a lot more about the history of the site and how we know what we know about that history. 0521690447
