The shining cities of the \TAztec\t and the \TInca\t encountered by Hernan \Tcortes\t and Francisco \TPizarro\t in the 16th century were the latest products of pre-Columbian art and architecture. The richness and variety of this art and architecture had earlier evolved for 3,000 years in many isolated areas, but its highest achievements were centered on the 6,400-km (4,000-mi) Pacific coast and parallel mountain ranges extending from present-day Mexico to Peru. A number of distinct cultures developed there before the arrival in the Caribbean of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The impact the Europeans had on the native civilizations was so devastating that the region's history has been divided into pre-Columbian (before Columbus and other Europeans) and post-Conquest periods. The true civilizations of pre-Columbian America were in \TMesoamerica\t (the valley of Mexico south to Honduras and parts of Nicaragua) and in the region of the central Andes; between them an intermediate area of high chiefdoms stretched from Nicaragua south to Ecuador. Pre-Columbian \TMaya\t cultures in Mesoamerica have three chronological periods: Preclassic (2000 BC-AD 300), Classic (300-900), and Postclassic (900-1540). Although other Mesoamerican cultures, such as the \TOlmec\t, do not fit well within this dating scheme, the same terms are often used with their chronologies. The central Andean region has its own time division based on the seven "horizon" cultures that spread over the entire region. Some prominent Andean cultures were \TChavin\t (900-200 BC), the \THuari\t (AD 600-900) and the Inca (1450-1540). The central Andes was as separate from Mesoamerica as India was from Europe during the same long period from 1600 BC to AD 1500. Although some contact did occur between these two broad culture areas of the New World, one area did not dictate the development of the other. Only after European contact did the entire area fall under the control of one culture, that of Spain. (For art and architecture of the post-Conquest periods, see \TLatin American art and architecture\t; for the pre-Columbian art of North America, see \TIndians of North America, Art of the\t.) MESOAMERICA Preclassic Period (2000 BC-AD 300) In Mesoamerica, figurines and fine ceramics fill the ruins of early-Preclassic villages from Ocos, in Guatemala, to Tlatilco, next to modern Mexico City. Smaller, solid figurines were formed by combinations of pellets, fillets, and punches. Larger figurines were hollow and open at one end to prevent cracking of the clay during firing. Only the white-surfaced, infantile-featured figures associated with the \TOlmec\t (1200-400 BC) were naturalistic, modeled in asymmetrical postures with curvaceous outlines. In the far western part of Mesoamerica, around the present-day states of Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima, hand-modeled figurines remained an important tradition after the Preclassic period. These lively figures were buried in tombs to protect and serve the people whose bodies were placed in the deep chambers reached by shafts cut in the rock. Because the artists conceived of the afterlife in many ways as a continuation of life on earth, they copied earthly activities and styles of dress and housing in their art. Village scenes show festivals and ball games. Surface painting became increasingly important in representing details, whereas modeling and incising, so essential earlier, fell into relative disuse. Artistically the western Mexican culture was exhausted before it received a new wave of ideas and forms from central Mexico during the \TToltec\t expansion in the 10th century AD. The Olmec, often considered the mother culture of mesoamerica, arose in about the 12th century BC. A civilization with kings, professional specialization, and writing, Olmec culture transformed the individual village-centered cultures of Mesoamerica into a network dominated by advanced centers, such as \TSan Lorenzo\t and \TLa Venta\t. The art in those centers was enormously difficult to produce. Masses of people had to be organized, first to locate the rare types of stone demanded by the Olmec rulers, then to transport the stone to their capitals, then to spend the thousands of hours needed to shape and finish the work, and finally to install the art where the rulers and their religious consultants ordained that it be placed. Two characteristic types of stone objects were produced: small jade carvings and colossal basalt monuments. Neither type of stone was available in the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico, where the Olmec centers were built. The blue green jade favored by the Olmec could be found only far to the northwest, in the state of Guerrero, and far to the southeast, in Guatemala and Costa Rica. It was perhaps partially worked there; a tradition of abstract, simplified stone carving remained in Mezcala (Guerrero) and Linea Vieja (Costa Rica) even after the Olmec culture had disappeared. Such jade carvings were then transported as far as 1,600 km (1000 mi). The finished objects, usually in the form of ritual axeheads, were deposited as massive offerings in deep pits beneath the surface of the La Venta ceremonial center, capped and guarded by an abstract jaguar mask made of a mosaic of axeheads. The basalt blocks, each of which weighed several tons, came from the Tuxtla volcanic range, located far north of the Olmec sites. They were transported partially by rafts but were also dragged many kilometers overland by platoons of laborers. The hard, dense stone was painstakingly carved into colossal naturalistic portraits of Olmec rulers' heads or into monumental, muscular seated figures. The image of the jaguar is everywhere in Olmec art, depicted either as a naturalistic pouncing animal or as an abstract face. Some experts have even suggested that the high platform--formed of millions of basketfulls of earth--on which San Lorenzo sits is modeled after a jaguar paw. A high earthen mound at La Venta, the prototype of a pyramid, took the shape of a fluted volcano cone. The Olmec probably settled widely in Mesoamerica to supervise their extensive trade network; low reliefs carved on rock outcroppings in Morelos, Chiapas, and El Salvador attest to their presence, as do paintings deep within caves in Guerrero. Relief carvings on stone stelae (upright slabs) commemorate the lord-and-vassal relationship between the Olmec and other groups. Between 100 BC and AD 300, Olmec innovations were developed in distinctively varying ways in the different regions of Mesoamerica. In central Mexico, the local Nahuatl-speakers focused on architecture. The earthen mound became faced with stone and terraced, in a circular form at Cuicuilco, but four-sided at Totimehuacan, where an interior cavelike bath was constructed representing the water-filled interior of the Earth. In the Maya-speaking southeast (Chiapas and Guatemala), the \TIzapa\t culture of the Preclassic stressed the stela cult. Low-relief carvings on the stelae depict not only standing personages in ceremonial attire but also rich mythological scenes with sacred trees and animal divinities, all bordered by monster-mouth bands. Around the 1st century AD, the lords of \TTeotihuacan\t erected what was to be the largest pyramidal structure for more than a millennium; it was placed directly over a cave that was probably sacred to Tlaloc, the rain god. Its careful alignment and its four sides proclaim the division of the cosmos into four cardinal directions, with the vertical axis in the center probably crowned by a temple, for which the pyramid served as a base. Classic Period (AD 300-900) During the Classic period all the arts of Teotihuacan have severe geometric forms. The sculpture there is broad and blocklike, yet with expressive subtleties. Framed by the architecture, mural paintings in temples and palaces represent divine idols, priests making offerings, and armed warriors surrounded by their animal symbols: eagles, jaguars, and coyotes. Other murals depict the fertility of nature and a watery paradise. Teotihuacan motifs spread widely through Mesoamerica during the early Classic period, accounting for architectural and ceramic forms in Veracruz; the Maya area, especially \TKaminaljuyu\t; and Oaxaca, especially in the \TZapotec\t capital of \TMonte Alban\t. At sites such as \TCopan\t, \TPiedras Negras\t, \TQuirigua\t, \TTikal\t, and \TUaxactun\t, stone stelae show standing figures in elaborate costumes carved in relief with astonishing delicacy. These figures represent the rulers; glyphs tell their ancestry and the key dates of their lives. The ruler's chief wife and his primary heir also figure both in the texts and on the carvings. The great mural cycle at \TBonampak\t combines the worldly emphasis on the ruler and his family with scenes symbolizing sacred dances. Divinities' heads and their symbols decorate the upper band. Battle and prisoner scenes shatter the earlier notion that peaceful theocracies existed during the Classic Maya period. Maya pyramids, also four-sided, stepped structures, had two specialized forms reflecting the Maya interest in honoring rulers: the twin pyramid complex and the mortuary pyramid. The former, known from Tikal, consisted of identical flat-topped and stepped pyramids facing each other across a plaza lined by plain stelae and low altar stones. An unroofed enclosure on one side, entered under a corbelled arch (a Maya invention), contained a carved stelae dedicated to the ruler. Mortuary pyramids known so far at Tikal and at \TPalenque\t have nine stages, symbolizing the nine levels of the underworld. Beneath the pyramid, the tomb of a ruler contained grave offerings of ceramics, flints, and jade. The ruler himself was presumably worshiped after his death like a god in the temple above his tomb. In the Maya area and in adjoining Veracruz, mold-made ceramic figurines often accompanied the dead. Some images are stiff, clothed in elaborate ornaments of a god; others are naturalistic, molded and adorned in lifelike fashion. Classic Veracruz art includes images of giggling children with dimples and broad grins. Solemn, life-size clay figures suggest deity impersonators and priestesses in dreadful ceremonies at the site of El Zapotal, where in one room was found a grinning, skeletal death god modeled in plaster. The need to struggle against insurmountable odds, even resulting in one's own sacrifice, is a central concept of Mesoamerican philosophy that finds clear expression in the Classic ball game. The players struggled to keep the solid rubber ball, a symbol of the Sun, in motion by hitting it with their hips. Heavy belts, shaped like yokes, and perhaps constructed of wood and leather, protected the players and increased the ball's momentum; these belts were often carved with the very images of death and the underworld from which the players were trying to protect the symbolic Sun. Palmate stones and thin stone heads may have identified a team, although they could also have served as division markers on the ball court. Such markers, circular and sunk into the ground, are well known on Maya ball courts. A relief from the south ball court at El Tajin depicts the final punishment of the loser in this game with cosmic overtones: the player was stretched back over a stone and his heart cut out as an offering to try to bring the Sun back from the underworld. In late Classic Maya art (AD 500-900), such mythological scenes were painted in many colors on funerary vases and plates. The finesse of the brushstrokes proves that many vase painters were full-time professionals; their literacy, as revealed in the surrounding bands of hieroglyphic (pictorial) writing, suggests that they numbered among the intellectual elite of Maya society. Postclassic Period (900-1540) Drastic movements of people occurring early in the Postclassic era dramatically altered the face of Mesoamerica. The Toltec, formerly a nomadic people, settled at Tula, northwest of Teotihuacan, and soon extended their control over long-settled peoples, such as those of Veracruz and even the Maya. The Maya themselves had recently abandoned their older cities in the central jungles and increased the population of their northern Yucatan cities, such as \TUxmal\t. With the same fine artisanship typical of their southern contemporaries, the Toltec cut and fit stones into palace and temple facades and carved oval-shaped scenes into the surface of monochrome clay vessels before firing. At \TChichen Itza\t this so-called Puuc style was supplanted by an art that was uniquely Toltec in form: inverted serpent columns, colonnaded halls, low banquettes with carved processions, human forms supporting roofs and tabletops, representations of Mexican atlatls (spear-throwers) and darts, and the forms of the eagle, jaguar, and coyote--images already seen associated with Teotihuacan warriors. There was also a new emphasis on death motifs. The Toltecs also built, at Chichen Itza, the largest ball court (150 m, or 492 ft, long) in Mesoamerica. Such movements brought the peoples of Mesoamerica in closer contact with each other; this increased contact was ultimately reflected in a greater similarity of their art forms. Painted screenfold books were perhaps the major way that the angular Toltec style was spread. These books were of two kinds: ritual, representing the deities controlling the various days and time periods; and genealogical, recording the evolution of the ruling houses (preserved only from the \TMixtec\t, a people of western Oaxaca). Polychrome pottery based on this codex style was found not only where the Mixtec lived, but also in the valley of Puebla-Tlaxcala and the Totonac-speaking region of coastal Veracruz. Murals inside buildings from the eastern Maya area reflect this Mixteca-Puebla style. Goldworking, recently acquired from lower Central America, supplied an intricate medium in which to execute Mixteca-Puebla subjects. Beautiful ceramics, some in cloisonne technique, reflect the same subjects and style throughout western Mexico, from Michoacan to Colima and up to Sinaloa. The Aztec, the dominant political power in Mesoamerica when the Spaniards arrived (1519), had been northern nomads like the Toltec, whose culture they copied. Their principal double pyramid in the island capital of \TTenochtitlan\t (at modern Mexico City) had one temple dedicated to the rain god, Tlaloc, and the other to their tribal war god, Huitzilopochtl, thus combining ancient and recent deities. Like Teotihuacan a millennium earlier, Aztec temples had colossal statues of their deities, in front of which black-painted priests placed offerings, from sacrificed quails to human hearts. Far more than any previous sculpture except that of the Olmec, Aztec statuary was carved in the full round. The central compound of which this pyramid was a part was surrounded by a defensive wall like that of many Postclassic cities. All other Aztec arts continued, and were really a part of, the Mixteca-Puebla tradition: precious-stone carving, metalsmithing, manuscript illustration, mural painting, relief carving, and ornamental featherwork. Such objects, sent to Spain by the conquistadors, amazed European artists by the skill and ingenuity they displayed. INTERMEDIATE AREA AND CENTRAL ANDES South of Mesoamerica, the art of the so-called Intermediate Area specialized in small objects made of gold or tumbaga (an alloy of gold with copper) and ceramics, with occasional work in fine stone and bone. Because this area was divided into small chiefdoms, its art never achieved the integration of the civilizations to the north or the south. With few exceptions, the chiefs never undertook monumental constructions. Large stone sculpture is found only in the Nicaraguan lake area, at Barriles in Panama, and, most notably, at \TSan Agustin\t, Colombia. South of the Intermediate Area, the central Andean civilization produced a range of arts as wide as that typical of the high cultures of Mesoamerica. Earliest Andean Art The earliest artistic tradition appeared along the coast and foothills of the northern Andes. There, in villages near the sea or rivers, Indians manufactured containers of clay fired at high temperatures. Although the earliest pottery may have come from Puerto Hormiga, Colombia, before 3000 BC, the richest and most expressive ceramics and figurines are known from villages such as Valdivia in Ecuador. The early artists there expressed themselves not only in the variety of proportions of their pots but also in the small figures they modeled on the pots' handles, rims, and shoulders. They also modeled clay figurines that are far more expressive and realistic than the earlier rectangular human images made from soft stone. In villages along the north coast of Peru, the earliest art, dating from before 2000 BC, resembled the art of the neighboring Valdivia culture of Ecuador but lacked ceramics. Instead, at Huaca Prieta art concentrated on burning squared figures into the surface of gourds. Already in this period small fragments of cotton textiles, Peru's most distinctive art form, displayed frontal eaglelike birds and rows of angular humans, lines of big-billed perching birds, and long-necked water-bird heads sharing a single body; almost all these motifs continued as major motifs throughout the history of central Andean art, as in the late \TChancay\t textiles. A few of these coastal villages have impressive public architecture of adobe in the form of a coherent sequence of large plazas with centralized depressions and raised platforms. The early dates of these centers, before 1600 and possibly as early as 2800 BC, indicate that large-scale construction occurred here far earlier than in Mesoamerica. Chavin Style (900-200 BC) The central Andeans adopted ceramics from the Ecuadoreans around 1200 BC, and by 900 BC the Chavin art style had become the first widespread art style in the Andes. The Chavin style apparently radiated radiated from the cut-stone temple at \TChavin de Huantar\t, in the north central highlands. Honeycomb passages in its U-shaped mass led to a shaped stone, incised and carved in low relief with the body of a jawless monster whose single row of teeth curves up in a smile. From appendages on the monster's body spring small heads of serpents, perhaps symbolizing life-creating fertility. In lintels, cornices, and doorjambs outside the temple, more recognizable creatures were incised: eagles, jaguars, and crocodiles, and profile views of warriors holding severed heads of enemies. On the north coast, several temples constructed of plaster and adobe were decorated with reliefs of jaguar faces. The temple at Cerro Sechin was protected by a wall of incised stone slabs alternating between large warrior images and smaller stone carvings of severed human parts. Monochrome ceramics represent realistically modeled jaguars as well as humans and houses. No architecture of the Chavin period has been discovered on the southern Peruvian coast, but ceramics named for the \TParacas\t peninsula repeat the Chavin theme of the smiling god and the feline face abstracted in flat, geometrically linear designs painted in many colors after firing. Cotton textiles painted in a full range of browns display a geometric angularity typical of Chavin woven designs. Immediately following the end of Chavin influence a style of brilliantly patterned textiles, named Necropolis for the cemetery area in which they were found, appeared (300-100 BC) in Paracas. Large mantles wrapped around the mummified bodies of important Indians present mythological and human images in as many as 12 colors of threads embroidered onto the wool-and-cotton cloth in curving lines. Strange, whiskered "cat-gods" are depicted with diving-bird headdresses (some preserved in hammered gold), bared claws, and long tails often ending in human heads. They hold severed heads by strings, recalling the headhunter trophies preserved in the recent past by Amazonian Indians. Skeletal human figures seem alternately to bend over backward or tilt forward, providing a crude mirror image when seen from either side of the mantle; the colors are alternate, ensuring that no design is duplicated exactly. Nazca (200 BC-AD 600) and Mochica (100 BC-AD 700) Styles During the \TNazca\t period many of these same motifs are transferred to the brilliant polychrome ceramics, which were painted before the clay was fired to increase their brightness and to seal the color under a burnished surface that looks glazed (although no pre-Columbian potters used true glaze). Extraordinarily large versions of these Nazca designs, plus long radiating and crisscrossing lines, were scraped on the faces of high desert mountains overlooking the valleys of the south coast. During the same period on the north coast, the culture known as \TMochica\t created the most humanistic statements in art found south of Mesoamerica. Most central Andean art is concerned more with pattern and design than with re-creating the human experience; hence its repetitive and geometric nature. Mochica ceramicists, on the other hand, building on Chavin motifs, modeled remarkably realistic animals with turned heads, alert eyes, and heavy bodies. Humans, in various positions and degrees of dress and undress, are also portrayed with powerful realism, including true portrait head jars of the nobility. Painted ceramic scenes stress the tumult of battle, the despairing fate of the vanquished, and mythological groups in which lunar and solar gods play central roles. Stirrup-spout vessels are often decorated with high molded reliefs of the solar god, identifiable by his Sun-ray headdress and feline-fanged mouth, seated in a nichelike cave in the mountains and flanked by female and animal assistants. The excavation in 1987-88 of a Moche warrior priest's tomb north of Trujillo, Peru, was of crucial importance to Pre-Columbian archaeology. The tomb yielded gold, silver, and jeweled ornaments in quantity and quality unknown before. This revolutionized the understanding of New World metallurgy. A wealth of ceramics also came from this tomb. The two large adobe-brick pyramids at the seaside site of Moche are traditionally said to be dedicated to the Sun gods and the Moon gods. The irregularly stepped terraces of the pyramids reflect the natural terrain of the Andes, which rise behind them. The mud-plastered walls of the surrounding buildings often were painted with scenes from mythology, like the pottery. During the flowering of regional styles like the Mochica and the Nazca, which in some ways parallel the Mesoamerican Classic period, the powerful cult center of \TTiahuanaco\t was built in the southern highlands in Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca. Large open spaces are bounded by vertical stone walls, some carved as huge single pieces with sharp right angles. A high pyramidal mound stands opposite a semisubterranean depression, the huge spaces punctuated by standing human figures cut in single square-sectioned blocks of stone incised with delicate patterns. Space flows through small freestanding gateways; the finest one, called the Gate of the Sun, probably represents the Andean lunar calendar. Carved in relief in the center of the lintel, a frontal figure stands on a stepped mountain and holds serpent staffs. He wears a sunburst headdress like the Mochica solar god. Around him winged human- and bird-headed figures kneel on one leg. Beneath him are 12 disembodied heads, also with radial headdresses, linked together by a celestial serpent with multiple heads. Huari (600-900) and Chimu (1000-1450) Styles The images depicted on the Gate of the Sun at Tiahuanaco appear on pottery, textiles, and metalwork throughout the central Andes during the Huari period, which marks the second area-wide civilization of Peru. The rulers of the city of Huari, in the central highlands, apparently became enthusiastic converts to the religion embodied in the images of Tiahuanaco, an especially important pilgrimage center. South-coast artists applied the bright colors and linear stylization of the earlier Nazca pottery and textiles to the Tiahuanaco images and lent their technique to the central coast, where the important shrine and oracle of \TPachacamac\t later eclipsed Tiahuanaco itself. The regular plans of Huari cities, often imperial storehouses, sometimes were patterned on animal forms, perhaps representing patron spirits for the towns. Such imperial constructions were emulated by later empires, especially by the Inca. After the decline of Huari influence, the royal lineages, first of Lambayeque and then of \TChimu\t, emerged on the northern Peruvian coast. Known from accounts made shortly after the Spanish conquest, the Chimu kings built impressive citadels for themselves at \TChan Chan\t, across the river from Moche. Each citadel had ceremonial courts, royal apartments and workshops, a water reservoir, and a large cemetery enclosed within high, thick earthen walls. The graves contained a rich supply of Chimu gold and silver work, feather clothing and wall hangings, wooden litters, figures, and masks, and a lustrous black pottery with modeled figures and relief scenes reminiscent of the Mochica. Rows of identical profile birds or fish, frontal humans, and zigzag stepped patterns are repeated monotonously, perhaps resulting from the emphasis on quantity instead of quality in the imperial Chimu workshops. Inca Culture (1450-1540) Inca art tended to be monotonous in its decorative objects such as textiles and pottery, in which purely geometric patterns abound. Favored forms found throughout the Andean highlands from Ecuador to Chile included the ceramic aryballos, a curving, long-necked vessel, and the wooden kero, a drinking cup with straight or slightly flaring sides. In architectural and engineering feats, however, the Inca achieved far more than their predecessors: paved roads spanned the empire; extensive terracing and irrigation systems were developed; and enormous, thick walls were constructed of perfectly fitted stones such as those at the renowned lost city of \TMachu Picchu\t. The hilltop fortress and ceremonial center of \TSacsahuaman\t, which overlooked the Inca capital city of \TCuzco\t, was surrounded by zigzag tiers of walls formed of massive irregular stones fitted with such precision that a knife blade cannot be inserted between them. The hillside opposite was carved with stepped seats for the Inca ruler and his court to observe the glittering ceremonies, which were resplendent with gold, silver, brightly colored costumes, and brilliant plumage obtained from birds of the foothills of the Amazon forest. John F. Scott Bibliography: Bonavia, D., Mural Painting in Ancient Peru, trans. by P.J. Lyon (1985); Bushnell, G. H. S., Ancient Arts of the Americas (1966); Cantrell, J., Ancient Mexico, 2d ed. (1985); Cordy-Collins, A., Pre-Columbian Art History, rev. ed. (1982); Donnan, C.B., ed., Early Ceremonial Architecture in the Andes (1985); Easby, Elizabeth Kennedy, and Scott, John F., Before Cortes: Sculpture of Middle America (1970); Emmerich, Andre, Art before Columbus (1963; repr. 1983); Gasparini, G., and Margolies, L., Inca Architecture, trans. by P.J. Lyon (1980); Kubler, George, Art and Architecture of Ancient America, 2d ed. (1976); Parsons, Lee A., Pre-Columbian Art (1980) and Origins of Maya Art (1986); Schele, Linda, and Miller, Mary Ellen, Blood of the Kings (1986).