Pre-Columbian Art
From WikiDemocracy
Pre-Columbian Art
Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The pre-Columbian era continued for a time after these in many places, or had a transitional phase afterwards. Many types of perishable artifacts that were once very common, such as woven textiles, typically have not been preserved, but Precolumbian monumental sculpture, metalwork in gold, pottery, and painting on ceramics, walls, and rocks have survived more frequently.
The first pre-Columbian art to be widely known in modern times was that of the empires flourishing at the time of European conquest, the Inca and Aztec, some of which was taken back to Europe intact. Gradually art of earlier civilizations that had already collapsed, especially Maya art and Olmec art, became widely known, mostly for their large stone sculpture.
Pre-Columbian art of Mexico and Central America
PRE-COLUMBIAN ART OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
by Shelved Dupont Bookstore SECOND STORY BOOKS
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1968. First Edition. Quarto; 388 pages; VG/VG; spine white with black text; dust jacket protected with mylar; mild shelfwear to dust jacket, including an inch-long brown smudge on the front cover; textblock clean; black and white and color photographs throughout; shelved Oversized Art.
Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America
by George Kubler YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
This handbook serves as the first comprehensive publication of the Yale University Art Gallery’s distinguished collection of Precolumbian art, which features notable pieces from throughout Mesoamerica and from every period. The nearly 300 object entries are arranged by region and include historical, iconographical, and structural information.
Hall of Mexico and Central America
by Educator Resources American Museum of Natural History
The Hall of Mexico and Central America features the diverse art, architecture, and traditions of Mesoamerican pre-Columbian cultures through artifacts that span from 1200 BC to the early 1500s.
Mayer Center, Department of Arts of the Ancient Americas
The Mayer Center, Department of Arts of the Ancient Americas collection spans nearly four millennia and includes examples of the artistry developed by communities throughout Mesoamerica, Central and South America, and the Caribbean and Southwestern United States. The collection, which began with a few pieces of northern and western Mexican sculpture, grew exponentially in 1968 with the formation of the department.
Mesoamerican and Pre-Columbian Art
During your research, you may wish to use or consult visual images. Below are links to some digital image collections of Pre-columbian art objects and archaeological locations.
Knowledge and belief
[https://www.britannica.com/topic/pre-Columbian-civilizations/Knowledge-and-belief by Michael Douglas Coe,
Michael Douglas Coe 11/10/25 Britannica] On the intellectual, ideological, and religious levels, although some diversity and certain elaborations occurred in some regions, there was a fundamental unity to the Mesoamerican area, the product of centuries of political and economic ties. The religion was polytheistic, with numerous gods specialized along the lines of human activities. There were gods for basic activities such as war, reproduction, and agriculture; cosmogenic gods who created the universe and invented human culture; and gods of craft groups, social classes, political systems, and their subdivisions.
Mesoamerican and Pre-Columbian Art
Art of the Ancient Americas collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Particularly strong in objects from the major civilizations of ancient Mexico. Collection includes ceramic funerary offerings from the West Mexican states of Nayarit, Colima, and Jalisco, jade figures produced by Olmec artists on the Gulf Coast, and textiles and ceramics from the ancient kingdoms of Peru. Browse collection by culture, place, or type of artwork.
Pre-Columbian Exhibits
Pre-Columbian art from Mexico and Central America displayed in a series of galleries communicates the power and sophistication of the mysterious cultures that rose and fell in ancient America. Emphasis is placed on the ceramic and stone arts of West Mexico, Costa Rica and Panamá. A gallery devoted to the famous "Limestone Tomb of Lord Pacal" includes a lifesize reproduction of the elaborately decorated and highly symbolic limestone sarcophagus excavated at the pyramid in the Mayan City of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. Other works of art from the ancient Mayan civilization complete the exhibit.
Pre-Columbian Mexico
Human presence in the Mexican region was once thought to date back 40,000 years, based upon what were believed to be ancient human footprints discovered in the Valley of Mexico; but, after further investigation using radioactive dating, it appears that this was an overestimate.[1] It is currently unclear whether 21,000-year-old campfire remains found in the Valley of Mexico are the earliest human remains in Mexico.[2] Indigenous peoples of Mexico began to selectively breed maize plants around 8000 BC. Evidence shows a marked increase in pottery working by 2300 BC and the beginning of intensive corn farming between 1800 and 1500 BC.
History of Mexico
by Michael C. Meyer, Ernst C. Griffin 25/10/25 Britannica
It is assumed that the first inhabitants of Middle America were early American Indians, of Asian derivation, who migrated into the area at some time during the final stage of the Pleistocene Epoch. The date of their arrival in central Mexico remains speculative. The assertions of some archaeologists and linguists that early humans resided in Mexico some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, before developing technology for big-game hunting, are rejected by most scholars.
Pre-Columbian Era: Mexico Before European Contact
by Francisco Perpuli 17/9/23 Culture Frontier
Before European explorers ever made contact with the New World in the 15th century, the Americas was a vastly different continent. Thriving civilizations and diverse cultures could be found throughout most of the Americas, with Mesoamerica being an important blossoming epicenter.
Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology
Remnants of pre-contact civilizations of Mesoamerica and greater Central America—cities and ritual sites lost in the tropical jungle—lured eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travelers and archeologists. Their descriptions of places that they had explored often included drawings, prints, and photographs, revealing how these Pre-Columbian monuments were perceived and recorded by their first visitors and scholars. Although one of the earliest of these accounts, Antonio del Río’s discovery of Palenque in 1787, was published only in 1822 in an English translation (with important additions by Paul-Félix Cabrera), its influence was comparable to that of Alexander von Humboldt’s Vues des cordillères, et monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique (1810), which combined the author’s interests in art, natural history, and material culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
