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Palenque

Palenque

: This article is about the ancient Maya site; for other meanings of "Palenque", see Palenque (disambiguation). Palenque (disambiguation) Palenque is a Maya archeological site near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas, about 130 km south of Ciudad del Carmen (see [http://www.placeopedia.com/?6262 map]). It is a medium sized site, much smaller than such huge sites as Tikal or Copán, but it contains some of the finest architecture, sculpture, and stucco reliefs the Maya produced.

The name

The site was already long abandoned when the Spanish arrived in Chiapas. The first European to visit the ruins and publish an account was Father Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada in 1567; at the time the local Chol Maya called it Otolum meaning "Land with strong houses", de la Nada roughly translated this into Spanish to give the site the name "Palenque", meaning "fortification". Palenque also became the name for the town (Santo Domingo del Palenque) which was built over some peripheral ruins down in the valley from the main ceremonial center of the ancient city. An ancient name for the city was Lakam Ha, which translates as "Big Water" or "Wide Water", for the numerous springs and wide cascades that are found within the site. Palenque was the capital of the important classic-age Mayan city-state of B'aakal (Bone).

The Maya Classic city

Spanish While the site was occupied by the middle Pre-Classic, it did not gain importance until several hundred years later. By 600 the first of the famous structures now visible were being constructed. Situated in the western reaches of Maya territory, on the edge of the southern highlands, B'aakal was a large and vital center of Maya civilization from the 5th century AD to the 9th century. The B'aakal state had a chequered career. Its original dynasts were perhaps Olmec. Politically, the city experienced diverse fortunes, being disastrously defeated by Kalakmul in 599 and again in 611. Nevertheless, B'aakal produced what is arguably the best known Maya Ajaw (king or lord), Pacal the Great, who ruled from 615 to 683, and left one of the most magnificent tomb-works of ancient Mesoamerica, beneath the Temple of Inscriptions. This is a grand temple atop a step pyramid dedicated in 692, inside is an elaborate long hieroglyphic text carved in stone detailing the city's ruling dynasty and the exploits of Pacal the Great. A stone slab in the floor could be lifted up, revealing a passageway (filled in shortly before the city's abandonment and reopened by archeologists) to long interior stairway leading back down to ground level and the shrine/tomb of the semi-divine Pacal. Over his crypt is an elaborate stone showing him falling into the underworld, and taking the guise of one of the Maya Hero Twins in the Popul Vuh who defeated the lords of the underworld to achieve immortality. Popul Vuh Other important structures at Palenque include:
- The Palace, actually a complex of several connected and adjacent buildings and courtyards built up over several generations on a wide artificial terrace. The Palace houses many fine sculptures and stucco reliefs in addition to the distinctive 4 story tower.
- The Temple of the Cross, Temple of the Sun, and Temple of the Foliated Cross. This is a set of graceful temples atop step pyramids, each with an elaborately carved relief in the inner chamber. They commemorate the succession of King Chan Bahlum II to the throne after the death of Pacal the Great, and show the late king passing on his greatness to his successor. These temples were named by early explorers; the cross-like images in two of the reliefs actually depict the tree of creation at the center of the world in Maya mythology.
- The Aqueduct constructed with great stone blocks with a 3 meter high vault to make the Otulum River flow underneath the floor of Palenque's main plaza.
- The Temple of The Lion at a distance of some 200 meters south of the main group of temples; its name came from the elaborate stucco depiction of a king seated on a throne in the form of a jaguar.
- Structure XII with a stucco depiction of the God of Death.
- Temple of the Count another elegant Classic Palenque temple, which got its name from the fact that early explorer Jean Frederic Waldeck lived in the building for some time, and Waldeck claimed to be a Count. The site also has a number of other temples, tombs, and elite residences, some a good distance from the center of the site, a court for playing the Mesoamerican Ballgame, and an interesting stone bridge over the Otulum River some distance below the Aquaduct.

Rulers

A list of known Maya rulers of the city, with dates of their reigns: Mesoamerican Ballgame
- K'uk B'alam I 11 March, 431 - 435
- "Casper" (nickname; ancient name not translated; also known as "11 Rabbit") 10 August, 435 - 487
- B'utz Aj Sak Chiik 29 July, 487 - 501
- Ahkal Mo' Naab I 5 June, 501 - 1 December, 524
- vacant ?
- K'an Joy Chitam I 25 February, 529 - 8 February, 565
- Ahkal Mo' Naab II 4 May, 565 - 23 July, 570
- vacant ?
- K'an B'alam I 8 April, 572 - 3 February, 583
- Yohl Iknal (female ruler) 583-604
- Aj Ne' Ohl Mat 605-612
- Pacal I 612
- Sac-Kuk (female) 612-615 d. 640
- K'inich Janaab' Pakal ("Pacal II"; "Pacal the Great") 615-683
- K'inich K'an B'alam II ("Chan Bahlam II") 683-702
- K'inich K'an Joy Chitam II 702-711 d. 722?
- Xoc (regent for Kan-Joy Chitam II) 711?-c. 722
- K'inich Ahkal Mo' Naab III ("Chaacal III") 3 January, 722 - after 729
- K'inich Janaab' Pakal ("Pacal III") fl. c. 742
- K'inich K'uk B'alam II 8 March, 765 - ?
- Wak Kimi Janhb' Pakal ("Pacal IV") 17 November, 799-?

The abandonment of Palenque

During the 8th century, B'aakal came under increasing stress, in concert with most other Classic Mayan city-states, and there was no new elite construction in the ceremonial center sometime after 800. An agricultural population continued to live here for a few generations, then the site was abandoned and was slowly grown over by the forest. The district was very sparcely populated when the Spanish first arrived in the 1520s.

Modern examinations of Palenque

Palenque is perhaps the most studied and written about of Maya sites. 1520s After de la Nada's brief account of the ruins no attention was paid to them until 1773 when one Don Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguilar examined Palenque and sent a report to the Capitan General in Antigua Guatemala, a further examination was made in 1784 saying that the ruins were of particular interest, so two years later surveyor and architect Antonio Bernasconi was sent with a small military force under Colonel Antonio del Rio to examine the site in more detail. Del Rio's forces smashed through several walls to see what could be found, doing a fair amount of damage to the Palace, while Bernasconi made the first map of the site as well as drawing copies of a few of the stucco figures and sculptures. Draughtsman Luciano Castañeda made more drawings in 1807, and the first book on Palenque, Descriptions of the Ruins of an Ancient City, discovered near Palenque, was published in London in 1822 based on the reports of those last two expeditions together with engravings based on Bernasconi and Castañedas drawings; two more publications in 1834 contained descriptions and drawings based on the same sources. Juan Galindo visited Palenque in 1831, and filed a report with the Central American government. He was the first to note that the figures depicted in Palenque's ancient art looked like the local Native Americans; some other early explorers, even years later, attributed the site to such distant peoples as Egyptians, Polynesians, or the Lost Tribes of Israel. Starting in 1832 Jean Frederic Waldeck spent two years at Palenque making numerous drawings, but most of his work was not published until 1866. Meanwhile the site was visited in 1840 first by Patrick Walker and Herbert Caddy on a mission from the governor of British Honduras, and then by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood who published an illustrated account the following year which was greatly superior to the previous accounts of the ruins. Désiré Charnay made the first photographs of Palenque in 1858, and returned in 1881 - 1882. Alfred Maudslay encamped at the ruins in 1890 - 1891 and made extensive photographs of all the art and inscriptions he could find, and made paper and plaster molds of many of the inscriptions, setting a high standard for all future investigators to follow. Several other expeditions visited the ruins before Frans Blom of Tulane University in 1923, who made superior maps of both the main site and various previously neglected outlying ruins and filed a report for the Mexican government on recommendations on work that could be done to preserve the ruins. 1923 From 1949 through 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier supervised excavations and consolidations of the site for Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH); it was Ruz Lhuillier who was the first person to gaze upon Pacal The Great's tomb in over a thousand years. Further INAH work was done in lead by Jorge Acosta into the 1970s. 1970s In 1973 the first of the very productive Palenque "Mesa Redonda"s (Round tables) was held here on the inspiration of Merle Green Robertson; thereafter every few years leading Mayanists would meet at Palenque to discuss and examine new findings in the field. Meanwhile Robertson was conducting a detailed examination of all art at Palenque, including recording all the traces of color on the sculpture. The 1970s also saw a small museum built at the site. In the last 15 or 20 years, a great deal more of the site has been excavated, but currently, archaeologists estimate that only 5% of the total city has been uncovered. Palenque remains much visited, and perhaps evokes more affection in visitors than any other Mesoamerican ruin.

External links


- [http://www.mesoweb.com/palenque/resources/index.html mesoweb's palenque resources]
- [http://www.evdaniken.com/e/gallery.htm Erich von Däniken's digital archive contains documents, unique photographs] Category:Maya sites Category:World Heritage Sites in Mexico

Palenque (disambiguation)

Palenque can refer to more than one thing.
- Palenque, an ancient city of the Maya civilization
- A palenque was a village hidden in the jungles of Spanish America. They were formed by escaped slaves (Maroons) and sometimes Amerindians. Since many slaves had not been subjected to a lot of contact with white people, the palenqueros spoke Creole languages from Spanish language and their African ones. See Spanish Creole.
- In Filipino languages, palenque means the town market.

Usumacinta River

.]] The Usumacinta River in southeastern Mexico and northwestern Guatemala, formed by the junction of the Pasión River, which arises in the Sierra de Santa Cruz (in Guatemala) and the Salinas River, also known as the Chixoy, or the Negro, which descends from the Sierra Madre de Guatemala, defines part of the border between the Mexican state of Chiapas and Guatemala. It then continues its northwesterly course, meandering through the Mexican state of Tabasco to the Gulf of Mexico. The river and its tributaries were important trade routes for the ancient Maya civilization. Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras, two of the most powerful cities of the Classic Maya, lie along its banks. Before roads penetrated the jungle, such as the Border Highway constructed by the Mexican Government in the early 1990s, the river was the only means of travel in this region. Huge trunks of hardwood trees were floated downriver to the state of Tabasco. In the 1980s, many Guatemalan refugees fled across the river to relative safety in Mexico. Other groups of refugees and Guatemalan guerillas formed the so-called CPR communities in the jungle on the Guatemalan shores, hiding from the government until the peace accords of the nineties. Frans and Trudi Blom first brought the idea of conservation to the watershed in the 1950s by proposing that a section of the Selva Lacandona be reserved for the Lacandon Maya. Their idea was as much the preservation of culture as of habitat, and this principle – that indigenous integrity and habitat are inextricably linked in the watershed – should help guide any future conservation planning. Conservationists working in the region, such as Nacho March, Ron Nigh, Fernando Ochoa, Roan Balas McNab and others, have all acknowledged and upheld the principle in their work. The first large hydroelectric project on the Usumacinta was proposed in the 1980s, and would have stretched all the way up the Pasion and Lacantun tributaries, flooding Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan, among other known and unknown Maya sites. At that time, the Guatemalan shore was held by rebels, whose presence discouraged illegal logging, poaching, and looting. It also discouraged dam engineers. In 1985 Jefferey Wilkerson's groundbreaking article in National Geographic brought the river and its glories to widespread public consciousness for the first time. Additionally, the Guatemalan journalist Victor Perera wrote about the river in The Nation and in his books The Last Lords of Palenque and Unfinished Conquest, and Jan de Vos chronicled the region in his magisterial series of histories. Ultimately the hydro project failed under the weight of its own disincentives: siltation, geology, seismic activity, distance from markets, politics, etc., but the outcry from conservationists, archeologists, writers, and the public helped. It also established a pattern. A thriving seasonal business in wilderness tourism began after the Wilkerson article. The river and its environs became a favorite destination of river travelers, amateur Mayanists and archaeologists, birders and wildlife tourists. Carlos Salinas proposed a smaller but still monumental hydro project in 1990, and completed the periferico surrounding the Montes Azules reserve. Articles in the New York Times, and op-ed pieces by Homero Aridjis suggesting a binational reserve for the area, helped defeat this incarnation of the idea. In the late nineties a consortium of scientists, and government and non-governmental organizations met in San Cristóbal de las Casas, under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Florida, to identify the extent and types of habitat remaining the region, and to draw maps of the watershed. The conference addressed many of the jurisdictional and administrative questions that still bedevil the idea. A link to the conference report: [http://www.law.ufl.edu/cgr/publications/usumacinta_river.pdf THE USUMACINTA RIVER: Building a Framework for Cooperation between Mexico and Guatemala] The Zapatista Rebellion in 1994 and 1995, and the Guatemalan peace accords in 1996, reshaped the political lines in the watershed. As a direct consequence, and with the dramatic fall of the peso, bandits began robbing raft trips, ending wilderness travel in the corridor. One of the most promising tourist activities, with the least potential impact and the most possibility for helping conservation, archaeology, and cultural preservation, ended. Illegal activity of all types took over the corridor. The Mexican army, which pervaded the Zapatista region, had little effect on river crime, and may have abetted it. In Guatemala, the absence of the expelled CPR communities, which had helped keep the selva safe and secure, now left it open to invasion, illegal logging, smuggling of immigrants, arms, artifacts, and drugs. (Many members of those communities now work as Defensores, but their numbers are few, and they are poorly paid.) The region continued in a state of low-grade terror and occupation for ten years.

Mexican State

The United Mexican States or Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos or México) is a federal republic made up of 31 states (estados) and one Federal District, (Distrito Federal), which contains the capital, Mexico City. Mexico City

See also


- List of Mexican state governors
- Ranked list of Mexican states
- Mexican state name etymologies Mexico, States of
- Mexico ko:멕시코의 행정 구역 ja:メキシコの州



Tikal

:This article is about the ruined city. For more uses of the word Tikal, see Tikal (disambiguation). Tikal is the largest of the ancient ruined cities of the Maya civilization. It is located in the El Petén department of Guatemala. Guatemala

Tikal in the Classic era

Tikal was one of the major cultural and population centers of the Maya civilization. Monumental architecture was built here as early as the 4th century BC. The city was at its height in the Maya Classic Period, approximately 200 AD to 850 AD, after which no new major monuments were built, some of the palaces of the elite were burned, and the population gradually declined until the site was abandoned by the end of the 10th century. The name "Tikal" means "Place of Voices" or "Place of Tongues" in Maya, which may be an ancient name for the city, although the ancient hieroglyphs usually refer to it as Mutal or Yax Mutal, meaning "Green Bundle", and perhaps metaphorically "First Prophecy". Scholars estimate that at its peak it had a population from 100,000 to 200,000. 10th century

The site

The site presents hundreds of significant ancient buildings, only a fraction of which have been excavated in the decades of archeological work. The most prominent surviving buildings include six very large step pyramids supporting temples on their tops. They were numbered geographically by early explorers. They were built during the city's height from the late 7th and early 9th century. Temple I was built around 695; Temple III in 810; The largest, Temple-pyramid IV, some 72 meters (230 feet) high, was dedicated in 720. Temple V is from about 750. Temple VI was dedicated in 766. The ancient city also has the remains of royal palaces, in addition to a number of smaller pyramids, palaces, residences, and inscribed stone monuments. There is even a building which seemed to have been a jail, originally with wooden bars across the windows and doors. There are also several courts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame. The residential area of Tikal covers an estimated 60 square km (23 square miles), much of which has not yet been cleared or excavated. A huge set of earthworks has been discovered ringing Tikal, with a 6 meter wide trench behind a rampart. Only some 9km of it has been mapped; it may have enclosed an area of some 125 km square.

Ancient history of Tikal

Tikal dominated the central Maya lowlands, but was often at war. Inscriptions tell of many alliances and wars with other Maya states, including with Uaxactun, Caracol, Naranjo, and Calakmul.

Rulers

Known rulers of Tikal include:
Image:TempleIIILintelMaudslay.jpg
King of Tikal from wooden lintel in Temple III
Depicting either "Yax Nuun Ayin II" or "Dark Sun"

- Yax Ehb' Xook c. 60 - dynastic founder
- Siyaj Chan K'awil Chak Ich'aak ("Stormy Sky I") 2nd century
- Yax Ch’aktel Xok c. 200
- Balam Ajaw ("Decorated Jaguar") 292
- K'inich Ehb' c. 300
- Ix Une' B'alam ("Queen Jaguar") 317
- "Leyden Plate Ruler" 320
- K'inich Muwaan Jol - died 359
- Chak Toh Ich’ak I ("Jaguar Paw I") c.360 - 378 - His palace, unusually, was never built over by later rulers, and was kept in repair for centuries as an apparent revered monument. He died on the same day that Siyah K'ak' arrived in Tikal.
- Nun Yax Ayin a noble from Teotihuacan, was installed on Tikal's throne in 379 by Siyah K'ak', ruled to 411
- Siyah Chan K'awil II ("Stormy Sky II") 411-456
- K'an-Ak ("Kan Boar") 458-486
- Ma'Kin-na Chan late 5th century
- Chak Tok Ich'aak (Bahlum Paw Skull) 486-508 married "Lady Hand"
- Ix Yo K'in ("Lady Tikal") 511-527
- Kalomte' Balam ("Curl-Head", "19th Lord") c. 511-527
- Wak Chan K'awil ("Double-Bird") - 537-562
- "Lizard Head II" - lost a battle with Caracol in 562
- K'inich Waaw 593-628
- K'inich Wayaan - early/mid 7th century
- K'inich Muwaan Jol II - early/mid 7th century
- Hasaw Chan K’awil ("Double Moon", "Lord Chocolate") 682-734 - entombed in great temple-pyramid I; his queen Lady Twelve Macaw (d. 704) is entombed in temple-pyramid II. Triumphed in war with Calakmul in 711.
- Yik’in Chan Kawil; His wife was Shana'Kin Yaxchel Pacal "Green Jay on the Wall" of Lakamha 734-766
- "Temple VI Ruler" 766-768
- Yax Nuun Ayiin II ("Chitam") 768-790
- "Dark Sun" c. 810
- "Jewel K'awil" 849
- Jasaw Chan K'awiil II 869-889 (English language names are provisional nicknames based on their identifying glyphs where rulers' Maya language names have not yet been definitively deciphered phonetically.)
Image:TikalNAcropStelae.jpg
Two stelae on the North Acropolis

Modern history of Tikal

As is often the case with huge ancient ruins, knowledge of the site was never completely lost in the region. Some second- or third-hand accounts of Tikal appeared in print starting in the 17th century, continuing through the writings of John Lloyd Stephens in the early 19th century. Due to the site's remoteness from modern towns, however, no scientific expedition visited Tikal until 1848. Several other expeditions came to further investigate, map, and photograph Tikal in the 19th and early 20th century. In 1951 a small airstrip was built at the ruins, which previously could only be reached by several days travel through the jungle on foot or mule. From 1956 through 1970 major archeological excavations were made by the University of Pennsylvania. In 1979 the Guatemalan government began a further archeological project at Tikal, which continues to this day. The ruins of Tikal is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and can be visited by the public. It was used as background scenery of the Rebel Base in the film Star Wars.

External links


- [http://www.tikalpark.com/ Tikal National Park]
- [http://www.destination360.com/tikal.htm QuickTime VR virtual tour of Tikal on destination360.com]
- [http://www.apj.co.uk/destinations/tikal.htm Short guide and fact sheet about the ruins of Tikal] Category:Maya sites Category:National_parks_of_Guatemala Category:World Heritage Sites in Guatemala ja:ティカル

Copán

The Pre-Columbian city now known as Copán is a locale in extreme western Honduras, in the Copán Department, near to the Guatemalan border. It is the site of a major Maya kingdom of the Classic era. The kingdom, anciently named Xukpi (Corner-Bundle), flourished from the 5th century AD to the early 9th century, with antecedents going back to at least the 2nd century AD. Its name is an apparent reference to the fact that it was situated at the far southern and eastern end of Maya territory. The nearby modern village of Copán Ruinas itself may have anciently been known as Oxwitik.

Description of the ruins

2nd century The site in Copan is perhaps best known for producing a remarkable series of portrait stelae, most of which were placed along processional ways in the central plaza of the city and the adjoining "acropolis" (a large complex of overlapping step-pyramids, plazas, and palaces). The stelae and sculptured decorations of the buildings of Copán are some of the very finest surviving art of ancient Mesoamerica. Many structures are elaborately decorated with stone sculptures, usually constructed from a mosaic of carved stones of a size that one person could carry. Mesoamerica The site also has a large court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame. At its height in the late classic period Copán seems to have had an unusually prosperous class of minor nobility, scribes, and artisans, some of whom had homes of cut stone built for themselves (in most sites a privilege reserved for the rulers and high priests), some of which have carved hieroglyphic texts. Mesoamerican ballgame The buildings suffered significantly from forces of nature in the centuries between the site's abandonment and the rediscovery of the ruins. There have been numerous earthquakes -- no roofs of the stone buildings intact when the site was rediscovered, and the hieroglyphic stairway was collapsed. The Copán river changed course and meandered, destroying part of the acropolis (revealing in the process its stratigraphy in a large vertical cut) and apparently wiping out various subsidiary architectural groups in the region. In the long period when the site was overgrown the buildings and scuptures suffered from the invasive thick jungle vegetation and periodic forest fires. Archeologists have consolidated and restored many structures at the site.

Pre-Columbian history

earthquake The fertile Copán River valley was long a site of agriculture before the first known stone architecture was built in the region about the 9th century BC. A kingdom seems to have been established in Copán in 159. It grew into one of the most important Maya sites by the 5th century. Large monuments dated with hieroglyhic texts were erected in the city from 435 through 822. Xukpi was one of the more powerful Maya city states, a regional power, although it suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the kingdom located at Quirigua in 738. It eventually withered in the face of the depletion of natural resources which was a factor in bringing most of the Classic-Age Maya city-states to their end. The area continued to be occupied after the last major ceremonial structures and royal monuments were erected, but the population declined in the 8th century - 9th century from perhaps over 20,000 in the city to less than 5,000. The ceremonial center was long abandoned and the surrounding valley home to only a few farming hamlets at the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.

List of known Xukpi rulers

16th century
- K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' before 426-437
- K'inich Popol Hol c. 437
- 1 King, name unknown c. 455
- Cu Ix c. 465
- 2 Kings, names unknown, 476, 485
- Waterlily-Jaguar after 504-544
- 2 Kings, names unknown; last one died 553
- "Moon Jaguar" 553-578
- Butz' Chan 578-628
- Smoke Imix K'awiil 628-695
- Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil ("18 Rabbit") 695-738
- K'ac Joplaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Monkey") 738-749
- K'ac Yipyaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Shell"; "Smoke Squirrel") 749-763
- Yax-Pasaj Chan Yoaat ("Yax Pac") 763-after 810
- (probably period where throne was vacant)
- U-Cit-Tok 822
- Royal ceremonial center of city abandoned by 827 The first sixteen names, from Yax K'uk' Mo' to Yax Pac, are depicted on Altar Q, an artifact that has provided researchers clues to the history and origins of Copán.

Copán in modern times

Altar Q By the time of the Spanish conquest of Honduras, the site had long been overgrown by rainforest. Although this large ruined city was known locally since early colonial times, it remained largely unknown by the outside world until a series of explorers visited it in the early 19th century. Juan Galindo wrote a description of the ruins in 1834, which was published the following year. This sparked the interest of North American explorer and travel writer John Lloyd Stephens and English architect and draftsman Frederick Catherwood whose illustrated books describing Copán and other sites excited a great deal of interest in Mesoamerican antiquities among American and European scholars, and its publication is regarded as the commencement of modern Mayan studies which continue to this day. The site was the subject of one of the first modern archeological surveys and excavations in the Maya area, conducted by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University from 1891 to 1900. Further excavations and restorations were begun by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the 1930s, the Peabody Museum again in the 1970s, followed by the Government of Honduras's Proyecto Copán beginning in the late 1970s and continuing to this day. See also:
- Maya civilization

Further reading


- Copán by Francis Robicsek, Museum of the American Indian, 1972
- Scribes, Warriors and Kings: The City of Copán and the Ancient Maya by William L. Fash, Thames and Hudson, 2001

External links


- [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/maya/ "Lost King of the Maya" site on pbs.org] companion site to "Nova" television documentary on Copán
- [http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/Copan/text.html Hieroglyphs and History at Copán] by David Stuart on peabody.harvard.edu Category:Cities in Honduras Category:World Heritage Sites in Honduras Category:Maya sites

Stucco

Stucco is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water which consistency when wet and when dry becomes hard. Also used in sidings, it is used as a coating for walls and ceilings or for decoration. In Europe the term render is more commonly used. Stucco may be used to cover less visually appealing construction materials such as concrete blocks, steel, or adobe. The difference in nomenclature between stucco, plaster, and mortar is based more on use than composition. Until the later part of the nineteenth century, it was common to have plaster, which was used inside the building, and stucco, which was used outside the building, consist of the same primary materials: lime and sand (lime and sand are also used in mortar). Animal or plant fibers were often added for additional tensile strength. In the later part of the nineteenth century, Portland cement began to be added with increasing frequency to stucco in an attempt to improve its durability. At the same time, traditional lime plasters were being replaced by gypsum plaster. Traditional stucco is made of lime, sand, and water. Modern stucco is made of Portland cement and water. Lime is often added to increase the permeability and workability of modern stucco. Sometimes additives such as acrylics and glass fibers are added to improve the structural properties of the plaster as well as its workability. This is usually done with what is considered a "one coat" stucco system—as opposed to the traditional 3 coat method. Lime stucco is a relatively hard material that can be broken or chipped by hand without too much difficulty. The lime itself is usually white; color comes from the aggregate or any added pigments. Lime stucco has the property of being self-healing to a limited degree due to the slight solubility of lime (lime in solution can be deposited in cracks where it later solidifies). Portland cement stucco is very hard and brittle and can easily crack if the base on which it is applied is not stable. Typically its color is gray due to the innate color of most Portland cement (white Portland cement is also used). Traditionally stucco was directly applied to a masonry surface such as brick or stone. In wood-framed buildings, stucco was applied over wood lath. Modern stucco is usually applied over an expanded metal lath that is fastened to the wall sheathing with staples, with a 2 layer moisture barrier in between. Traditionally, stucco has been used as a sculptural and artistic material. Baroque and Rococo architecture makes heavy use of stucco. Examples can be found in churches and palaces, where stucco is mostly used to provide a smooth, decorative transition from walls to ceiling, decorating and giving measure to ceiling surfaces. Stucco is an integral part of the art of belcomposto, the baroque concept that smoothly integrates the three classic arts, architecture, sculpture, and painting. Since stucco can be used as a decorative means, but also for figurative representation, it provides an ideal transitive link from architectural details to wall paintings such as the typically baroque trompe l'oeil ceilings. Here, the real architecture of the church is visually extended into a heavenly architecture with a depiction of Christ, the Virgin Mary or the Last Judgment at the center. Stucco is being used to form a semi-plastic extension of the real architecture that merges into the painted architecture. Islamic art makes use of stucco as a decorative means in mosques and palaces. Indian architecture knows stucco as a material for sculpture in an architectural context. Due to its "aristocratic" look, baroque looking stucco decoration was used frequently in upper-class apartments of the 19th and early 20th century. It was also employed in the 1950's in pre-molded forms for decorating the joins between walls and ceilings inside houses. It was generally painted the same colour as the ceiling and used in designs where a picture rail or rat rail was in use. Category:Materials Modern Stucco consists of 1 layer of wire lath and 3 layers of portland cement based plaster. When applied to metal lath, three coats of portland cement plaster form a 7/8-inch total thickness. Portland cement plaster has high impact resistance, sheds water, but breathes, allowing water vapor to escape. 1st a Wire Mesh is attached to vapor permeable, water-resistant "tar" paper. The paper protects the sheathing and interior of the wall from outside moisture intrusion without trapping moisture vapor in the wall. Wire lath is used to give the cement something to attach to and may be expanded-metal lath, woven-wire lath, or welded-wire lath. Then a layer which is composed of Portland Cement and sand called scratch coat is applied. A "comb" is used to scratch the surface horizontally or in a criss cross pattern to provide a surface which the next layer can hang from. The next layer is called Brown coat. It consists of Portland Cement, Mortar, and sand. It is trowelled on to provide the surface with texture. The next layer is called color coat and consists of cement, sand, coloring agents(mineral oxide pigments), and glue(adhesive used to make it stick to the brown coat). Lime is often used in the mixture depending on the textured finish desired and the climate of the area.

Ruins

For the fictional DC Comics supervillian, see Ruin For the Metal Band, see Ruin For the Japanese drum-bass duo, see Ruins (band) Ruins (band) Ruins (band) Ruins are the remains of a piece of man-made architecture. The term is used to describe a structure that was at one time complete but has fallen into a state of disrepair over time due to the action of weathering and lack of maintenance. There are basic types of ruins that can be found in the world. Historical ruins, like those found at Rome and Athens, have been unearthed through the work of archaeologists. Modern ruins, such as abandoned buildings in large metropolitan areas, are discovered by urban exploration. In Christian iconography, the Nativity of Christ has often been depicted in a setting of grand ruins, symbolising the new Temple (the body of Christ) that rises on the site of the old. Popular adventure films, such as the Indiana Jones trilogy or the Mummy films, rely on ancient relics and artifacts found in ruins. The idea of the ruin has become prominent in popular culture as a device with which to add suspense and in many cases horror. Architectural follies were sometimes built as intentional ruins. In the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer designed buildings calculated to have a high "ruin value" for posterity. These buildings were never built, but perhaps ironically some of the most recent and understated modern ruins (ruined through passage of time rather than intentional destruction) are the uncompleted autobahn motorways built by the Nazis that litter the German countryside. Category:Architecture
- ja:廃墟

Spanish language

:This article is about the international language known as Spanish or Castilian. For other languages spoken in Spain see Languages of Spain. Spanish or Castilian (Spanish: español or castellano) is an Iberian Romance language, and the fourth most widely spoken language in the world according to some sources, while other sources list it as the second or third most spoken language. It is spoken as a first language by about 352 million people, or by 417 million including non-native speakers (according to 1999 estimates). Some assert that, after English, Spanish can now be considered the second most important language in the world (probably replacing even French), due to its increased usage in the United States, the high birth rate in most of the countries where it is official, the growing economies of the Spanish-speaking world, its enormous influence on the global music market, and simply due to the broad number of areas on the Earth's surface that the language is spoken in.

"Spanish" or "Castilian"

Spaniards tend to call this language español when contrasting it with languages of other states (for example: in a list with French and English), but call it castellano (Castilian, from the Castile region) when contrasting it with other languages of Spain (such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan). In some parts of Spain, mainly where the people speak Galician, Basque, and Catalan, it is considered offensive to call the language español, as that is what Francisco Franco called it during his reign. For the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, speakers of the language in some areas refer to it as español, and in others castellano is more common. Castellano is the name given to Spanish language in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay and Venezuela. Some philologists use Castilian only when speaking of the language spoken in Castile during the Middle Ages, stating that it is preferable to use Spanish for its modern form. Castilian can be also a subdialect of Spanish spoken in most parts of modern day Castile. It would have a series of characteristics and a specific pronunciation different to the one of Andalusia or Aragon for example, where they would speak different subdialects.

Classification and related languages

Spanish is a member of the Romance branch of Indo-European, descended largely from Latin and having much in common with its European geographical neighbors. Spanish is related to several languages in terms of phonology, grammar and orthography. Of these, Portuguese is perhaps one of the most similar in terms of major languages. However, Spanish is also closely related to Catalan, Asturian, Galician and several other Romance languages. Spanish has fewer similarities with French and Italian but shares strong ties due to Latin roots. Portuguese is orthographically similar in many ways to Spanish but it has a very distinctive phonology. A speaker of one of these languages may require some practice to effectively understand a speaker of the other (although generally it is easier for a Portuguese native speaker to understand Spanish than the other way around). Compare, for example: :Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar. (Portuguese) :Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar. (Spanish) Some less common phrasings and word choices have closer cognates in Spanish because Portuguese has managed to retain a much larger vocabulary, with stronger Latin heritage: :Ela cerra sempre a janela antes de cear. (less common Portuguese) (Which translates as "She always closes the window before having dinner.") In some places, Spanish and Portuguese are spoken almost interchangeably. Portuguese speakers are generally able to read Spanish, and Spanish speakers are generally able to read Portuguese, even if they cannot understand the spoken language. In fact, the number of bilingual speakers in Brazil (where Portuguese is the official language) has greatly risen because nearly every nation bordering Brazil is Spanish speaking.

History

The Spanish language developed from vulgar Latin, with influence from Celtiberian, Basque and Arabic, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula (see Iberian Romance languages). Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin vita, Spanish vida), palatalization (Latin annum, Spanish año) and diphthongation (stem-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo). Similar phenomena can be found in most other Romance languages as well. During the Reconquista, this northern dialect was carried south, and indeed is still a minority language in northern Morocco. The first Latin to Spanish dictionary (Gramática de la Lengua Castellana) was written in Salamanca, Spain, in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija. When Isabella of Castile was presented with the book, she asked, What do I want a work like this for, if I already know the language?, to which he replied, Ma'am, the language is the instrument of the Empire. From the 16th century on, the language was brought to the Americas, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marianas, Palau and the Philippines by Spanish colonization. In the 20th century, Spanish was introduced in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara. For details on borrowed words and other external influences in Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.

Geographic distribution

Spanish is one of the official languages of the United Nations and the European Union. The majority of its speakers are confined to the Western Hemisphere, Europe and the Spanish territories in Africa (Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla). With approximately 106 million first-language and second-language speakers, Mexico boasts the largest population of Spanish-speakers in the world. The four next largest populations reside in Colombia (44 million), Spain (c. 44 million), Argentina (39 million) and the United States of America (U.S. residents age 5 and older who speak Spanish at home number 31 million) [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_lang=en&_ts=134303235020]. Spanish is the official and most important language in 20 countries: Argentina, Bolivia (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea (co-official French), Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official Guaraní), Peru (co-official Quechua and Aymara), Puerto Rico (co-official English), Spain (co-official Catalan/Valencian, Galician and Basque), Uruguay, Venezuela, and Western Sahara (co-official Arabic). In Belize, Spanish holds no official recognition, however, it is the native tongue of about 50% of the population, and is spoken as a second language by another 20%. It is arguably the most important and widely-spoken on a popular level, but English remains the sole official language. In the United States, Spanish is spoken by three-quarters of its 41.3 million Hispanic population. It is also being learned and spoken by a small, though slowly growing, proportion of its non-Hispanic population for its increasing use in business, commerce, and both domestic and international politics. Spanish does hold co-official status in the state of New Mexico, and in the unincorporated U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. See Spanish in the United States for further information. In Brazil, Spanish has obtained an important status as a second language among young students and many skilled professionals. In recent years, with Brazil decreasing its reliance on trade with the USA and Europe and increasing trade and ties with its Spanish-speaking neighbours (especially as a member of the Mercosur trading bloc), much stress has been placed on bilingualism and Spanish proficiency in the country. On July 07 2005, the National Congress of Brazil gave final approval to a bill that makes Spanish a second language in the country’s public and private primary schools [http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=5996]. The close genetic relationship between the two languages, along with the fact that Spanish is the dominant and official language of almost every country that borders Brazil, adds to the popularity. Standard Spanish and Ladino (Judæo-Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews) may also be spoken natively by some Spanish-descended Brazilians, immigrant workers from neighbouring Spanish-speaking countries and Brazilian Sephardim respectively, who have maintained it as their home language. Additionally, in Brazil's border states that have authority over their educational systems, Spanish has been taught for years. In many other border towns and villages (especially along the Uruguayo-Brazilian border) a mixed language commonly known as Portuñol is also spoken. In European countries other than Spain and Andorra (where it holds no official status), it may be spoken by some of their Spanish-speaking immigrant communities, primarily in the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom where there is a strong community in London. There has been a sharp increase in the popularity of Spanish in the UK over the last few years. It is spoken by much of the population of Gibraltar, though English remains the only official language. Yanito, an English-Spanish mixed language is also spoken. Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is the seventh most spoken language in Australia. It is also spoken by the approximately 3,000 inhabitants of Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile. The island nations of Guam, Palau, Northern Marianas, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia all once had Spanish speakers, but Spanish has long since been forgotten, and now only exists as an influence on the local native languages. In Asia the Spanish language has long been in decline. Spanish ceased to be an official language of the Philippines in 1987, and it is now spoken by less than 0.01% of the population; 2,658 speakers (1990 Census). However, the sole existing Spanish-Asiatic creole language, Chabacano, is also spoken by an additional 0.4% of the Filipino population; 292,630 (1990 census). Most other Philippine languages contain generous quantities of Spanish loan words. Among other Asian countries, Spanish may also be spoken by pockets of ex-immigrant communities, such as Mexican-born ethnic Chinese deported to China or third and fourth generation ethnic Japanese Peruvians returning to their ancestral homeland of Japan. Spanish is also spoken by segments of the populations in Aruba, Canada, Curaçao, Israel (both standard Spanish and Ladino), northern Morocco (both standard Spanish and Ladino), Netherlands Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey (Ladino), and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In Antarctica, the territorial claims and permanent bases made by Argentina, Chile, Peru and Spain also place Spanish as the official and working language of these enclaves.

Variations

There are important variations among the various regions of Spain and Spanish-speaking America. In Spain the North Castilian dialect pronunciation is commonly taken as the national standard (although the characteristic weak pronouns usage or laísmo of this dialect is deprecated). Spanish has three second-person singular pronouns: tú, usted, and in some parts of Latin America, vos (the use of this form is called voseo). Generally speaking, tú and vos are informal and used with friends (though in Spain vos is considered a highly exalted archaism that is now confined to liturgy). Usted is universally regarded as the formal form, and is used as a mark of respect, as when addressing one's elders or strangers. The pronoun vosotros is the plural form of tú in most of Spain, although in the Americas (and some particular southern-Spain cities such as Cádiz) it is replaced with ustedes. It is remarkable that the informal use of ustedes in southern Spain does not keep the proper pronoun-verb agreement: while the formal form of "you go" would be ustedes van, in Cádiz the informal form would be constructed as ustedes vais, making use of the second person of the plural instead of the third (which constitutes the formal construction). Vos is used extensively as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular pronoun in various countries around Latin America, including Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Uruguay. In Argentina, Uruguay, and increasingly in Paraguay, is it also the standard form used in the media, whereas media in other voseante countries continue to use usted or tú. Vos may also be present in other countries as a limited regionalism. Its use, depending on country and region, can be considered the accepted standard or reproached as sub-standard and considered as speech of the ignorant and uneducated. The interpersonal situations in which the employment of vos is acceptable may also differ considerably between regions. Spanish forms also differ regarding second-person plural pronouns. The Spanish dialects of Latin America have only one form of the second-person plural; ustedes (formal/familiar). Meanwhile, in Spain there are two; ustedes (formal) and vosotros (familiar/informal). The RAE (Real Academia Española), in association with twenty-one other national language academies, exercises a controlling influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar guides and style guides. In part due to this influence, and also because of other socio-historical reasons, a neutral standardized form of the language (Standard Spanish) is widely acknowledged for use in literature, academic contexts and the media.

Grammar

Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but small noun declension and limited pronominal declension. (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs.) As for syntax, the unmarked sentence word order is Subject Verb Object, though variations are common. Spanish is right-branching, using prepositions, and with adjectives generally coming after nouns. Spanish is also pro-drop (allows the deletion of pronouns when pragmatically unnecessary) and verb-framed.

Sounds

The consonantal system of Castilian Spanish, by the 16th century, underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from some nearby Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Catalan:
- The initial , that had evolved into a vacillating , was lost in most words (although this etymological h- has been preserved in spelling).
- The voiced labiodental fricative (that was written u or v) merged with the bilabial oclusive (written b). Orthographically, b and v do not correspond to different phonemes in contemporary Spanish, excepting some areas in Spain, particularly the ones influenced by Catalan/Valencian and some Andalusia.
- The voiced alveolar fricative (that was written s between vowels) merged with the voiceless (that was written s, or ss between vowels).
- The voiced alveolar affricate (that was written z) merged with the voiceless (that was written ç, ce, ci), and then evolved into the interdental , now written z, ce, ci. But in Andalucia, the Canary Islands and the Americas these sounds merged with as well. Notice that the ç or c with cedilla was in its origin a Spanish letter, although is no longer used.
- The voiced postalveolar fricative (that was written j, ge, gi) merged with the voiceless (that was written x, as in Quixote), and then evolved by the 17th century into the modern velar sound , now written j, ge, gi. The consonantal system of Medieval Spanish has been better preserved in Ladino, the language spoken by the descendants of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in the 15th century.

Lexical stress

Spanish has a phonemic stress system — the place where stress will fall cannot be predicted by other features of the word, and two words can differ by just a change in stress. For example, the word camino (with penultimate stress) means "road" or "I walk" whereas caminó (with final stress) means "he/she/it walked". Also, since Spanish pronounces all syllables at a more or less constant tempo, it is said to be a syllable-timed language.

Writing system

The pronunciation of any Spanish word can be perfectly predicted from its written form. Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with the addition of ñ (eñe). Ch and ll also have their own places in the alphabet (a, b, c, ch, d, ..., l, ll, m, n, ñ, ...). Since 1990, however, words containing the letters ch and ll have been alphabetized as though spelled with the separate letters c - h and l - l. The letter u sometimes carries diaeresis (ü) after the letter g, and the stressed vowel carries an acute accent (á) in many words. Exclamatory and interrogative clauses begin with inverted question and exclamation marks.

Examples of Spanish

Note, the third column uses the International Phonetic Alphabet, the standard for linguists, to transcribe the sounds. There are several examples of travellers' vocabulary and one literary reference. You can listen to these words being read out. Both the transcription and the recording represent standard Castilian pronunciation. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (opening sentence).

See also


- Real Academia Española
- Common phrases in Spanish
- List of English words of Spanish origin
- Names given to the Spanish language
- Spanish proverbs
- Spanish language poets
- Spanish Creole
- Portuñol
- Papiamento, Chavacano language, Spanglish, Yanito, Palenquero
- Rock en español
- Latin Union
- Islenos

Local varieties


- Argentine Spanish
- Colombian Spanish
- Cuban Spanish
- Mexican Spanish
- Panamanian Spanish
- Puerto Rican Spanish
- Rioplatense Spanish
- Spanish in the United States
- Spanish in the Philippines
- Venezuelan Spanish
- Central American Spanish

External links

About the Spanish language


-
- [http://www.rae.es Official page of the RAE] (in Spanish)
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa Ethnologue report for Spanish]
- [http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/i.e.mackenzie/index.html Spanish Language & Linguistics Website]
- [http://assets.cambridge.org/0521805872/sample/0521805872WS.pdf PDF: A history of the Spanish language]
- [http://www.sispain.org/english/language/worldwid.html Numbers of speakers by countries]
- [http://www.vistawide.com/spanish/why_spanish.htm Why learn Spanish?] 10 reasons for learning Spanish
- [http://spanish.about.com Spanish Language] Collection of lessons and other resources
- [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/2444/splatin.html Spanish evolution from Latin]
- [http://www.trustedtranslations.com/spanish_language.asp Spanish Language Characteristics] Some characteristics of Spanish Language

Dictionaries


- [http://buscon.rae.es/diccionario/drae.htm DRAE, Dictionary of the RAE] (Spanish-spanish)
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Spanish-english/ Spanish — English Dictionary]: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.diccionarios.com Diccionarios.com]
- [http://www.my-spanish-dictionary.com/ An English-Spanish Dictionary]
- [http://www.tododiccionarios.com/ Tododiccionarios.com] a directory of reference works in English or Spanish, classified by subject, with several thousand links.
- [http://spanishdict.com/ Spanishdict.com] Another Spanish-English dictionary.
- [http://wordreference.com/ Wordreference.com] Comprehensive Spanish-English-Spanish dictionary.
- [http://www.tomisimo.org/ Tomísimo.org] A Spanish-English dictionary.

Grammatical help


- [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Spanish Spanish grammar Wikibook]
- [http://www.studyspanish.com/tutorial.htm Spanish Grammar Tutorial - with quizzes, tests, and oral activities]
- [http://tchaidze.com/spangram/tenses.html#correspondence Usage of Tenses]
- [http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/courses/accents.htm Use of written accent marks in Spanish]
- [http://verbs.obrist.org Spanish Verb Forms] — Search and conjugate Spanish verbs.
- [http://www.helloworld.com.es/english/quick%20reference/grammar.htm Grammar and more] Examples, Uses, Explanations of Grammar Points and a Free Personal Spanish Verb Conjugator

Tutorials


- [http://www.declan-software.com/spanish Spanish vocabulary learning software with audio]
- [http://spanish.mypage.org Spanish for beginners and travelers]
- [http://learno.com/spanish/index.html Free Learno.com online Spanish tutorial]
- [http://www.listenandlearn.org Practice Spanish Online with Audio Stories]
- [http://www.studyspanish.com/ StudySpanish.com] Popular website for beginners
- [http://www.angelfire.com/ego/pdf/ng/argentina/arsp.html Rioplatense Spanish] Spanish from the River Plate basin
- [http://www.spanish-kit.net Spanish-kit.net] Free Downloadable Spanish grammars, and vocabulary learning tools.
- [http://www.fridaspanish.com Fridaspanish.com Learn Spanish] Mexican Spanish
- [http://www.ielanguages.com/spanish.html Free Spanish Language Tutorial at ielanguages.com]
- [http://www.quiz-tree.com/Spanish_Language_main.html Free Spanish quizzes with audio by a native speaker]
- [http://www.spanicity.com/ SpaniCity] Free Spanish lessons, sounds, grammar and dictionary
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=14&learn-Spanish/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in Spanish] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration
- Spanish phrasebook on Wikitravel

Resources


- [http://www.spanishblogger.com Spanish Blogs & Weblog Directory]
- Category:Languages of Spain Category:Languages of Argentina Category:Languages of Belize Category:Languages of Bolivia Category:Languages of Chile Category:Languages of Colombia Category:Languages of Costa Rica Category:Languages of Ecuador Category:Languages of El Salvador Category:Languages of Guatemala Category:Languages of Honduras Category:Languages of Mexico Category:Languages of Nicaragua Category:Languages of Panama Category:Languages of Paraguay Category:Languages of Peru Category:Languages of Uruguay Category:Languages of Venezuela ja:スペイン語 ko:에스파냐어 simple:Spanish language th:ภาษาสเปน

5th century

Overview

Events


- Rome sacked by Visigoths in 410.
- Attila the Hun conquers large parts of Europe, threatens to attack Rome in 452
- Pope Leo I allegedly meets personally with Atilla and convinces him to leave Rome alone.
- Vandals conquer Carthage in 439, sack Rome in 455
- At some point after 440, the Anglo-Saxons settle in Britain. The traditional story is that they were invited there by Vortigern.
- Last Roman ruler of Western Roman Empire leaves in 476. Europe enters the Middle ages, beginning with the Dark Ages.
- Buddhism reaches Myanmar and Indonesia.
- According to the Book of Mormon, Moroni buries the Golden Plates and ends the record around 421.
- African and Indonesian settlers reach Madagascar.
- Augustine writes The City of God

Significant persons


- Augustine of Hippo, bishop, theologian
- Niall Noigiallach, founder of one of Ireland's greatest dynasties.
- St. Jerome hermit, cleric, Bible translator
- Bodhidharma
- Theoderic the Great, Ostrogothic king
- Attila the Hun
- St. Patrick, completed the conversion to Christianity in Ireland
- Alaric I, king of the Visigoths that sacked Rome
- Flavius Aëtius, last of the great Roman generals
- Pope Leo I

Inventions, discoveries, introductions


- stirrup invented in China
- heavy plow in use in Slavic lands
- metal horseshoes become common in Gaul
- Anglo-Saxon Futhorc alphabet used in England

Decades and years

Category:5th century 05th century ko:5세기 ja:5世紀 simple:5th century th:คริสต์ศตวรรษที่ 5

Olmec

The Olmec were an ancient people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, roughly in what are the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Their immediate cultural influence went much further though, Olmec artwork being found as far afield as El Salvador. The Olmec predominated in their lands from about 1200 BC to about 400 BC and they are, in fact, understood to be the progenitors and mother culture of every primary element common to later Mesoamerican civilizations. Mesoamerica

Overview

The Olmec homeland is characterized by swampy lowlands punctuated by low hill ridges and volcanoes. The Olmec response to this environment was the construction of permanent city-temple complexes. The best-known Olmec centers are at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, La Venta, Tres Zapotes, Chalcatzingo, and La Mojarra. The Olmec were the first Mesoamericans to develop a hieroglyphic script for their language, the earliest known example dating from 650 BC. They were perhaps the originators of the Mesoamerican ballgame so prevalent among later cultures of the region and used for recreational and religious purposes – certainly they were playing it before anyone else has been documented doing so. Their religion developed all the important themes (an obsession with mathematics and with calendars, and a spiritual focus on death expressed through human sacrifice) found in successor cults. Finally, their political arrangements of strongly hierarchical city-state kingdoms were repeated by nearly every other Mexican and Central American civilization that followed.

Name

The name "Olmec" means "rubber people" in the Aztec's language: Nahuatl. It was the Aztec name for the people who lived in this area at the much later time of Aztec dominance. Ancient Mesoamericans, spanning from ancient Olmecs to Aztecs, extracted latex from Castilla elastica, a type of rubber tree in the area. The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba, was then mixed with this latex to create rubber as early as 1600 BC [http://web.mit.edu/org/m/materialculture/www/rubberprocessing.html]. The word "Olmec" also refers to the rubber balls used for their ancient ball game. Early modern explorers applied the name "Olmec" to the rediscovered ruins and art from this area before it was understood that these had been already abandoned more than a thousand years before the time of the people the Aztecs knew as the "Olmec". It is not known what name the ancient Olmec used for themselves; some later Mesoamerican accounts seem to refer to the ancient Olmec as "Tamoanchan".

Early history

rubber Olmec culture originated at its base in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, where distinctively Olmec features begin to emerge around 1150 BC. The rise of civilization here was probably assisted by the local ecology of well watered rich alluvial soil, encouraging high maize production. This ecology may be compared to that of other ancient centres of civilization: Mesopotamia and the Nile valley. It is speculated that the dense population concentration at San Lorenzo encouraged the rise of an elite class that eventually ensured Olmec dominance and provided the social basis for the production of the symbolic and sophisticated luxury artifacts that define Olmec culture. Evidence of materials in San Lorenzo that must have come from distant locations suggests that early Olmec elites had access to an extensive trading network in Central America. This was probably protected by some sort of military system. Sites such as Teopantecuanitlan show that the Olmecs were also living in Guerrero.

Olmec art

Teopantecuanitlan Much Olmec art is highly stylized and uses an iconography reflective of the religious meaning of the artworks. Some Olmec art, however, is surprisingly naturalistic, displaying an accuracy of depiction of human anatomy perhaps equaled in the Pre-Columbian New World only by the best Maya Classic era art. Olmec artforms emphasize monumental statuary and small jade carvings. A common theme is to be found in representations of a divine jaguar. Olmec figurines were also found abundantly through their period. A team of archaeologists using NAA (neutron activation analysis) to compare over 1000 ancient Mesoamerican Olmec-style ceramic artifacts with 275 samples of clay so as to "fingerprint" pottery origination found "that the Olmec packaged and exported their beliefs throughout the region in the form of specialized ceramic designs and forms, which quickly became hallmarks of elite status in various regions of ancient Mexico" ([http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/olmec/index.html Archaeological Institute of America, March 28, 2005 ]). See [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/hi_cebu.htm] for photographs of an ancient Olmec "Bird Vessel" and bowl, both ceramic and dating to circa 1000 BC. Other ancient artifacts are listed (no photographs) at [http://www.nd.edu/~sniteart/collection/Galleries/MesoGallery.html]. Ceramics are produced in kilns capable of exceeding approximately 900° C (see pottery). The only other prehistoric culture known to have achieved such high temperatures is that of Ancient Egypt ([http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_n3_v154/ai_21146424]; also see faience).

Olmec colossal heads

Perhaps the best-recognized Olmec art are the enormous helmeted heads. As no known pre-Columbian text explains these, these impressive monuments have been the subject of much speculation. These seem to be portraits of famous ball players, as the headgear is similar to that worn by players of the Mesoamerican ballgame in other monuments. Perhaps they depict kings rigged out in the accouterments of the game. Some writers have pointed to the full, fleshy lips and wide noses of these monuments as evidence that the Olmec were actually immigrants from Africa or (in a more recent variation on the suggestion) that they represent supposed evidence of some Mesoamerican-African intermarriages. Mainstream scholars have remained unconvinced by this suggestion. They have pointed out that not all people with wide noses and thick lips are African; some Native Americans of this region still display these traits today without any other evidence of African ancestry. Thick lips and short, broad noses are the norm among Mesoamericans and tropical Mongoloids. It is also noted that the colossal heads show eye folds found in the local Mesoamericans, but not in most Africans. Some of these features are also present among the Khoisan and San Bushmen, suggesting a possible connection to the once widely spread Negrito peoples. These are thought to represent an early migratory group, and are still present in parts of Southeast Asia.

Were-Jaguar Motif

What is traditionally called the “were-jaguar” motif is the most distinctive and enigmatic design of Olmec art and iconography. Most commonly found depicted as figurines of were-jaguar babies, the motif can also be found carved into jade “votive axes” and celts, engraved onto various portable figurines of jade and jadeite materials, and depicted on several altars at La Venta. Typically characterized by almond-shaped eyes and fleshy lips, different variations on the motif can also include a cleft head, a toothless mouth, the presence of jaguar-like fangs, or some combination of these qualities. The motif was designated as “were-jaguar” because of the combination of human, generally baby-like, characteristics and potential jaguar-like qualities such as fangs and the cleft head that is characteristic of male jaguars. However, scholars have yet to come agreement on the meaning behind the were-jaguar motif. Originally scholars believed that the predominance of the were-jaguar motif was possibly connected to a religious mythology that derived from the story of copulation between a male jaguar and a female human. Murals and statues from sites like Chalcatzingo and Potrero Nuevo seemed to reinforce this idea. However, scholars like Carolyn Tate (1999), Carson Murdy (1981), Whitney Davis (1978), and Peter Furst (1981) have proposed alternative ideas for the notions of human-jaguar copulation and the representation of jaguar characteristics. Davis (1978) suggests, for instance, that the depictions of human-jaguar copulation on monuments at Laguna de los Cerros, Potrero Nuevo, and Rio Chiquito, as well as reliefs as Chalcatzingo, are perhaps the beginnings of a jaguar cult or are representative of conquest in battle rather than something more sexual. Rather than viewing the people and jaguar-figures in sexual situations, Davis sees the jaguar, or man in jaguar pelts, as an aggressor towards a defeated opponent. Most of the figures in the reliefs and monuments are clothed in loincloths, which would negate copulation, and Davis believes those that are naked appear dead or dying rather than in a sexual posture. It is not uncommon to see unclothed human figures as representative of dead captives or opponents in battle, as in the Danzantes of Monte Alban. Even before Davis (1978) questioned the idea of a belief system centering on human-jaguar copulation, scholars like Michael Coe (1962) looked for other biological causes for the fleshy lips, cleft head, and toothless mouths that make up the were-jaguar motif. Genetic abnormalities like Down’s syndrome and spina bifida have been common explanations. People afflicted with spina bifida in particular present developmental defects that coincide with the were-jaguar characteristics. One such condition is encephaloceles, which among other things, can cause separation of the cranial sutures and result in depression, or cleft, in the head (Murdy 1981:863). Cranium bifidum can produce similar results. In addition, there is a higher chance of these conditions occurring within the same family, than randomly throughout the population (Murdy 1981: 863). If children born with this affliction were seen as divine or special in some way, multiple births of affected children within a family or familial line would have reinforced that family’s political and religious power. Other ideas about the meaning of the were-jaguar motif question whether or not the diagnostic traits of the motif actually represent a jaguar. The cleft head of the “were-jaguar” is most often called into question. The cleft has been seen to represent a trait of the toad, as a “gender-specific female symbol” (Furst 1981: 151), or as distinguishing mark of a rain or maize supernatural being. Several characteristics of the toad have led some to believe that the were-jaguar motif does not actually represent a jaguar. Species of toad that are commonly found in Mesoamerica, like Bufo marinus or Bufo valliceps have the pronounced cleft in the head, and like all toads have a fleshy mouth with toothless gums. These species of toad are known to have ceremonial and hallucinogenic properties for many cultures of Mesoamerica. Skeletal remains of these species, particularly B. marinus, have been found at several archaeological sites in Mesoamerica including Olmec ceremonial centers. Those were-jaguar representations that have fangs commonly attributed as jaguar fangs can also be explained as toad-like. Several times a year, mature toads shed their skin. As the old skin is shed, the toad will eat it. As the skin is eaten it hangs out of the toad’s mouth and closely resembles the fangs of the were-jaguar. The process of regeneration could have symbolized death and rebirth in the earth and its maize crops. The toad then would have been seen as holding powers connected to rain and maize, which the Mesoamericans would have to draw upon through religious artifacts like the were-jaguar celts or the Las Limas figure. Despite many possibilities for the origin of the were-jaguar motif, most scholars conclude that the were-jaguar is an early symbol for a rain and/or maize supernatural being. Contemporary studies of Mixe shamanism and indigenous beliefs show similarities to Olmec ritual practices that have been discovered through archaeology. Both the modern and ancient practices are connected to ideas represented in design elements of the were-jaguar motif. It is commonly accepted that the Olmec spoke some form of a Mixe-Zoquean language, and are most likely the ancestors of modern Mixe speakers, at least in language and now religious practices. It is suggested that the key to understanding the religious connotations of the were-jaguar motif can be found by comparing the large serpentine mosaic offerings found at La Venta to contemporary Mixe indigenous beliefs. At La Venta, large mosaics in the form of the were-jaguar were buried deep underground, possibly creating a source of spiritual power. The mosaics potentially represent beliefs that are still found in the Mixe culture today. For example, the Mixe spiritual entity for water and life is closely associated with the term “fontanelle”. A fontanelle is the area of incompletely formed cranial bones in infants and is thought of as a means of communication with gods or deities in several indigenous North American cultures. The cleft head in the were-jaguar motif could represent the fontanelle associated with the Mixe water supernatural. The were-jaguar motif has also been associated with the bar-and-four-dots design, found on the La Venta mosaics as well as many other were-jaguar designs in the form of a headband with four dots, or maize seeds, on it. The bar-and-four-dots is seen by many archaeologists as a symbol of earth and fertility. In modern Mixe culture, the earth supernatural being is associated with the northern direction and the color dark green (Tate 1999: 179). The La Venta mosaics can be related to these contemporary beliefs because the mosaics are located on the northern axis of La Venta and are made from dark green stones. At La Venta, it is easily seen how the were-jaguar motif relates to both rain and earth/maize spiritual entities.

References

Davis, Whitney. 1978. So-Called Jaguar-Human Copulation Scenes in Olmec Art. American Antiquity 43(3): 453-457. Furst, Peter T. 1981. Jaguar Baby or Toad Mother: A New Look at an Old Problem in Olmec Iconography. In The Olmec and Their Neighbors, edited by E.P. Benson, pp 149-162. Dumbarton Oaks: Washington D.C. Murdy, Carson N. 1981. Congenital Deformities and the Olmec Were-Jaguar Motif. American Antiquity 46(4): 861-871. Tate, Carolyn E. 1999. Patrons of Shamanic Power: La Venta’s Supernatural Entities in Light of Mixe Beliefs. Ancient Mesoamerica 10: 169-188.

Religion

: Main article: Olmec mythology Olmec art shows that such deities as the Feathered Serpent God and the Rain God were already in the Mesoamerican pantheon in Olmec times. What appears to be a half-human half-jaguar baby is also prominent.

Mathematics

The late Olmec had already begun to use a true zero (a shell glyph) several centuries before Ptolemy (possibly by the fourth century BC) which became an integral part of Maya numerals (see 0 (number): First use of the number).

Olmec people

Very few individual Olmec people are known to modern scholars; the following sample will perhaps convey some flavor of the people.
- Po Ngbe (at Guerrero) sometime between 900 and 600 BC
- "Harvest Mountain Lord"
- U-Kix-chan – Founder of the ruling dynasty of B'aakal, a Maya kingdom at Palenque.
- Yo Pe (at Mojarra) second century BC

Decline of the Olmec

It is not known with any clarity what happened to this culture. Their main center, San Lorenzo, was all but abandoned around 900 BC, and La Venta became the main city. Environmental changes may have been responsible for this move, with certain important rivers changing course. However, there is also some evidence suggestive of an invasion and destruction of Olmec artifacts around this time. At about 400 BC, La Venta also came to an end. Within a few hundred years of the abandonment of their last cities, successor cultures had become firmly established in their former lands – most notably the Maya to the east, the Zapotec to the southwest, and the Teotihuacan culture to the west.

Mormon speculation

Some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) have suggested that the Olmecs may be the Jaredites recorded in the Book of Mormon because of alleged similarities in the Olmec archaeological record. However, the book mentions things that are not known to have been part of the Olmec culture, such as iron, silk, and elephants. This speculation is not supported by any aspect of conventional Mesoamerican scholarship.

See also


- Legends of the Hidden Temple

References


- [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11144288 PubMed], Department of Immunology, Hospital 12 de Octubre, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain. For questions, please e-mail: aarnaiz@eucmax.sim.ucm.es.
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/science/15olme.html?hp Mother Culture, or Only a Sister?], The New York Times, March 15, 2005.
- [http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0297.htm] Category:Ancient peoples Category:Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica Category:Pre-Columbian cultures
- ja:オルメカ

Kalakmul

Calakmul is the name of both a municipality and a major archeological site in the Mexican state of Campeche, in the central part of the Yucatán Peninsula.

Municipality

The municipality (municipio) of Calakmul was created on 31 December 1996. It borders to the east with Quintana Roo and Belize, to the south with Guatemala, and to the north and west with other municipalities in the state. It covers 13,839 km², accounting for 24.34% of the state's total surface area. The municipal seat is the city of Xpujil, a small settlement of some 1000 inhabitants located on Federal Highway 186 as it crosses the base of the peninsula from Escárcega, Campeche, to Chetumal, Quintana Roo.

Archeological site

Calakmul (also Kalakmul and other less frequent variants) is also the name given to site of one of the largest ancient Mayan cities ever uncovered. It is located in the 1,800,000 acre Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, deep in the jungles of the Petén, 30 km from the Guatemalan border. First discovered from the air by biologist Cyrus L. Lundell of the Mexican Exploitation Chicle Company on December 29, 1931, the find was reported to Sylvanus G. Morley of the Carnegie Institute at Chichen Itza in March 1932. According to Lundell, who named the site, "In Maya, 'ca' means 'two', 'lak' means 'adjacent', and 'mul' signifies any artificial mound or pyramid, so 'Calakmul' is the 'City of the Two Adjacent Pyramids'." Calakmul was the major seat of power of the Kaan or "Kingdom of the Snake", which first arose further north but built Calakmul into a Late Classic Era superpower ally of Caracol and rival to Tikal. A series of 11 painted vessels, dubbed Dynastic Vases, describe the ascensions of the Kaan rulers, including ancestral and legendary figures. Calakmul probably supported a population of over 50,000, and so far more than 6,250 structures have been discovered in an area of up to 70 square kilometers with a substantial northern wall and a series of water management features (Calakmul's reservoirs include the largest in the Mayan world) delineating a dense core of 22 square kilometers. Calakmul's 45 meter pyramid "Structure 2" is the largest Classic Era Mayan temple platform known. Many of the city's monuments and structures are constructed of chalky local limestone, which has made interpretation of the site difficult. After a long period of inactivity following Morely's 1932 expedition, the city was explored by William Folan between 1984 and 1994, and is now the subject of a large-scale project of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) under Ramón Carrasco.

Known rulers of Calakmul

(Note that this list is not continuous, as the archaeological record is incomplete)
- Unknown: Yuknoom Ch'een I
- c.520–546: Tuun K'ab' Hix
- c.561–572: Sky Witness
- 572–579: First Axewielder
- 579–c.611: Scroll Serpent
- c.619: Yuknoon Chan
- 622–630: Tajoom Uk'ab' K'ak'
- 630–636: Yuknoom Head
- 636–686: Yuknoom the Great
- 686–c.695: Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ak'
- c695: Split Earth
- c.702–c.731: Yuknoom Took' K'awil
- c.736: Wamaw K'awil
- c.741: Ruler Y
- c.751: Ruler Z
- c.771–c.789: B'olon K'awil
- c.849: Chan Pet
- c.909: Aj Took'

External links


- [http://www.calakmul.gob.mx/wb2/ Calakmul municipal government]
- [http://www.mayanroutes.com/calakmul.html Calakmul] (from The State of Campeche Book)
- [http://http://www.calakmul.org/ Friends of Calakmul]
- [http://www.anthroarcheart.org/calakmul.htm Commercial Stock Photos of Calakmul]
- [http://nature.org/wherewework/fieldguide/projectprofiles/cbr.html The Nature Conservancy's Calakmul Biosphere Reserve page]
- [http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~dhixson/calakmul/map.html Virtual Walking Tour of Calakmul]
- Kaan Emblem Principal Glyphs: [http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/montgomery/ch/t764_chan_kan_a.htm A], [http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/montgomery/ch/t764_chan_kan_b.htm B] Category:Maya sites Category:World Heritage Sites in Mexico ja:カラクムル

599

Events


- The Chinese win the war at Ordos.
- The Mayan city of Palenque is defeated by Kalakmul.
- Raedwald becomes king of East Anglia (approximate date).

Births


- January 23 - Emperor Taizong of Tang China

Deaths


- Taliesin, Welsh poet.
- King Hye of Baekje Category:599 ko:599년

611

Altern