Forgot my tablet at home - oops. These are notes to replace them. Port to my paper notes when I get home.

Postulated that each civilisation is composed of the same and similar people

Incan

Teotihuacan

• dedicated to quetzalcoatl

• 200 bodies of sacrifices found at the foundation of the pyramid

• dedicated with painted serpent masks

Mayan

300 - 800 CE; almost identified as the name of all ancient american civilization, but it was later realzied that distinct empires and cultures existed

economy: cultivation of maize based in the yucatan peninsula, mexico and guatemala cultivated maize, use llama suddenly collapses, then aztec empire rises a few hundred years later; gap unknown

picture and written language cannot be differentiated ;pictures are composed of small words, but large carvings as part of tablets are part of the writing themselves; there is no clear division between art and script - one and the same! i love this idea of continuity

palenque

temple of inscriptions

contains burial chamber of pacal, mayan king 9 levels of the underworld (on the outside), 13 representing heaven (stair decorations down to the burial chamber) form mimics a timber structure with thatched roof; carvings suggest wooden beams. mansard roof mimics the mayan hut: the weight on the top of the roof to hold the roof down is mimicked in stone, completely ordamental

extensive use of corbelled arches; replicates on the inside the interior of the peasant house, but constructed with more permanent materials.

ball court at copan

mayan founding myth: twins who play a sacred game, are decapitated, and are resurrected by outwitting the gods game involving inserting a rubber ball in stone hoops, (ritualized enactment of battle?) ritualistic, not for entertainment; losing team decapitated and sacrificed.

chichen itza

late mayan? maybe separate civilization (toltec)? the chacmool - a reclining sculpture of a warrior with a receptacle on the chest - may have been used for sacrificial offerings. maybe the heart?

El castillo pyramid (spanish term)

built to commemorate the completion of a time cycle; built over a smaller pyramid that can be reached from the new temple make 364 with 91 stairs on all of the four sides; the animal head makes 365 days in a year. likely for astronomical purposes. at spring equinox: pyramid casts a serpent-like shadoe over hte staircase on the dragon head side!

aztec people

tenochtitlan (present day mexico city) experts in landscaping; making the architecture merge with the earth myth: site was chosen by an eagle resting on a cactus tree in the middle of a lake. planned as a capital city of a huge empire

aztec "flowery war": perpetual warfare for supplying prisoners for sacrifice. (um..). spanish filled the lake, built a large catholic church in the city center to replace the aztec monuments

inca

today's peru cuzco: capital city at the joint of all four provinces of this civilization no horses, chariot, or cars; very carefully planned system of running and couriers covering 20,000 miles of roads. they built roads with the mountain, using parts of the mountain itself to construct this mountain so it becomes part of the landscape; this is in contrast to modern roads that will be disrupted and buried in a few years without maintenance. in this way, the mountain passages are almost easier to use and maintain than our highways today

cuzco

modeled in the shape of a puma (?) belly: ceremonial square; the head is formed by a ritual citadel. architecture is a reshaping of nature; leveraging the real environment to redesign a built environment comprehensively

new spanish city built over incan infrastructure; incans intentionally burned their city after conquest. incan bases will stand long after spanish buildings are gone no cement or concrete; each stone is custom-made to fit into the heighboring stones. dove-tailed to form mortarless and earthquake proof wall; staggering forces all of the stones to interlock

[in class, prof. asks 'what does this remind you of?' to prompt references to the past and *synthesis*]

they seem to mimic the landscape, using architecture as an extension and mimic of the landscape.

machu picchu

three day travel from cuzco; discovered in 1911. maintained after spanish conquest. thought to be royal estate rather than a city; "temple of the sun"

terraces to make place more hospitable, grow more food, etc hard to tell how much of fountain is human culture vs nature very subtle sculpting of natural rock: "just enough" to make functional and beautiful for humans.