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Mesoamerican architecture.
The two more excellent typologies of the architecture developed by the different
Mesoamericans civilizations were the pyramid and the game of ball. The American
pyramid is different from the Egyptian not only by its form - stepped and
truncated in its superior part -, but also by its function, that is the one to
welcome a sanctuary or temple in the elevated plateau more. A habitual practice
era to raise pyramids by layers, so that a new building was constructed
surrounding old to the every 52 years, that were the cycle established for the
renovation of the world. The ball game, that was not a sport but a ritual
spectacle, used to be related to pyramids and consisted of a walled space of
plant in double T. The Mayan culture extended from the Yucatan Peninsula to
Belize, Honduras and Guatemala, and its period of greater splendor took place
between centuries IV and XI. One of the first great Mayan cities is the one of
Tikal (Guatemala), of which an enormous sacred enclosure (centuries III-VIII)
with numerous pyramids is conserved. On the platforms of these pyramids the
temples or sanctuaries rise, with a near space covered by a false typical vault
of the architecture of this civilization. Another one of the flourishing centers
at the classic time was Win (Honduras), an astronomical training center where
the monumental Stairs of the hieroglyphics are conserved (centuries VII-VIII),
as well as one of the more beautiful games of ball of the Mayan civilization.
The Palenque (thus called by the Spaniards to be a walled enclosure) was the
center of this culture in Mexico and its more emblematic building is the temple
of the Inscriptions (centuries VII-VIII), located on a pyramid that, in this
case, contains a burial camera. Already on the first millennium of the Christian
era, the Kukulcán soldier founded the city of Chichén Itzá on the plain of
Yucatan. The architecture of this city has an enormous influence of the zone
that is to the north of the Mexican capital, as they show to the temple of the
Soldiers (centuries XI-XII) and the pyramid of the Castle (centuries XI-XII)
that follow the models toltecas of the city of Tula. Other emblematic buildings
of Chichén Itzá are the Caracole (an astronomical observatory to that it is
acceded through a spiral staircase) and the famous Game of Ball, flanked by
monumental walls that rich are carved. Also in the Yucatan Peninsula is Uxmal,
whose beautiful palace of the Governor (centuries X-XI), erected on an
artificial plateau, shows the conpositive masters that was reached in the final
stage of the Mayan Classical Art. Mayan Art and architecture see.
The call culture of the Sale (800-400 a.C.), probably related to the town olmeca,
seems to have been one of first and the also most influential one of all the
American continent. Its effect is appraised in constructions Alban the Mount
(centuries VI-IX), the Acropolis zapoteca on the city of Oaxaca, or in the
palace of the Columns (century XV) of Mitla, also in Oaxaca, with its
spectacular covered walls of mosaics. Another one of interesting the
Mesoamericans civilizations is the one of the Tajín, that has bequeathed its
Great Pyramid (century VII) of niches carved on the vertical walls.
Nevertheless, the great classic culture of the center of Mexico was Teotihuacana,
located on the plain the northwest of Mexico-Tenochitlán. Its more fabulous work
is the great pyramid of the Sun (century II a. C.), a building of 72 ms of
height and 240 square meters of extension, whose set completes the pyramid of
the Moon and a well-known embankment area like the City. Towards century IX, the
teotihuacana culture succumbed to the push of the town tolteca that introduced
the cult to the in plumed serpent Quetzalcóatl, an image that often represents
in bas-relief of their temples. The capital tolteca was Tula, where the pyramid
of the temple of the Star is conserved in the morning (c. 900), constructed in
five levels of 2 ms of height. A center that exemplifies the transition of the
classic time to the tolteca is Xochicalco (house of the flowers), in the present
state of Morels, Mexico; its magnificent temple of Quetzalcóatl is adorned with
glifos bas-relief and. |
