#toltecs

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.

In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

‘Le Trésor des Toltèques‘ [’3 Skulls of the Toltecs’]

[PC] [FRANCE] [MAGAZINE] [1996]

Chichén Itzá is situated on the Yucatán Peninsula.

Chichén Itzá was founded by the mid-400's, on a flat site near two large cenotes. The city's history is divided into two parts, although there is some overlap.

The first part is about 750-900 AD, or perhaps 800-1000.  The buildings from this time are of the distinctive Puuc style architectural style, and they have Mayan hieroglyphs.

The second part is 1000-1200 AD.  Buildings from this time show influence of the Toltecs, whose capital Tula was 1000km to the north.  It is possible that the Toltecs conquered Chichén Itzá as they expanded their empire; or it may have been because of cultural/economic contact & sharing.

Common features of Chichén Itzá & Tula include warrior columns, quetzal-feathered rattlesnakes, clothing styles of the subjects, the chac mools, atlantids, the representation of certain animals, Tlaloc (the rain god), a tzompantli (sacrificial skull rack), incense burners, and certain personal names represented by glyphs which are in both cities, but which are not Maya.

Temple of the Warriors - strong Toltec influence.

Columns at Temple of the Warriors.

From 1200 AD onwards, Chichén Itzá fell into a decline, and Mayapan became the new capital in the region.  But it wasn't fully abandoned: ordinary people continued to live there, and the city remained a place of ancestry & pilgrimage, even after the Spanish invasion.

The Great Ballcourt.

Inside El Castillo at Chichén Itzá (Mexico).

The Pyramid of Kukulkan (named El Castillo by the Spanish) was likely built by the Toltec-Maya between 1050 and 1300 AD.  At the equinoxes, the sun casts a snake-shaped shadow against the stairs, symbolic of Kukulkan's journey from the heavens to Xibalba, the Maya underworld.

This pyramid was not the first built on this site.  In the 1930s, archaeologists discovered a second pyramid-temple nested inside the main one, probably built sometime between 800 and 1000 AD.  And during the last decade, a third pyramid was found inside the second one, dating to between 550 and 800 AD.

The middle temple (20m high) has nine platforms, one stairway, and a temple that contains human remains, a jade-studded jaguar throne [1] and a chac-mool [2] – a reclining male figure holding a bowl that would have been used as a receptacle for sacrifices.