Unit 5 Essentials

The "world axis" — a vertical sacred connection between the underworld, earth, and sky. Represented by temples, pyramids, mountains, and trees. Templo Mayor is the axis mundi of Tenochtitlán; Machu Picchu may align to sacred Andean peaks (apus).

Cultural region spanning southern Mexico through northern Central America, defined by shared traits: hieroglyphic writing, the 365/260-day calendar, the ball game, stepped pyramids, and maize agriculture. Includes Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, and Aztec/Mexica cultures.

"Feathered Serpent" — one of the principal Mesoamerican deities, associated with wind, learning, creation, and the planet Venus. Depicted as a feathered rattlesnake. Represented at Teotihuacan (Feathered Serpent Pyramid), and central to Mexica mythology. Quetzal feathers carry his sacred identity.

Autosacrifice performed by Maya rulers and their consorts by drawing blood from the tongue, ear, or genitals using stingray spines or obsidian blades. Blood fed the gods and sustained the cosmos. Depicted on Yaxchilán Lintel 24 (Lady Xoc drawing rope through tongue).

A false arch formed by progressively cantilevering stones from each side until they meet at the top — NOT a true arch (which distributes weight through a keystone). Used by Maya architecture. Creates the characteristic triangular interior spaces of Maya temples and corbeled vaults.

The Maya writing system: ~800 glyphs combining logographic (word-sign) and syllabic elements. Fully deciphered in the late 20th century. Records historical events, dates, genealogies, and ritual sequences. Yaxchilán lintels use glyphs to identify participants, dates, and ritual context.

Maya astronomical calendar counting days from a mythological creation date (3114 BCE). Allows precise dating of historical events. The "2012 phenomenon" misread the end of a Long Count cycle as apocalyptic — the Maya calendar simply reset, like an odometer.

Tall carved stone slab erected to commemorate rulers, record dates, and document historical events. Major form of Maya public political art. Paired with altars at the base. Distinguished from lintels (architectural elements above doorways like those at Yaxchilán).

Capital of the Mexica (Aztec) empire, built on an island in Lake Texcoco (present-day Mexico City). Population ~200,000–300,000 at Spanish contact — larger than any European city of the time. Destroyed by Cortés 1521; Mexico City built over it.

Mexica god of the sun and war — born each morning as the sun and must be sustained by blood sacrifice to defeat the moon and stars each night. The right (south) shrine of Templo Mayor is dedicated to him. Coyolxauhqui is his sister, defeated in the mythic battle reenacted cosmically each day.

Mexica rain and water deity — associated with fertility, agriculture, and storms. The left (north) shrine of Templo Mayor is dedicated to Tlaloc. His goggle eyes and fanged mouth are identifying attributes. Dual dedication of Templo Mayor = dual economy of war (Huitzilopochtli) and agriculture (Tlaloc).

Mexica moon goddess, sister of Huitzilopochtli. According to myth, she led her 400 brothers in revolt against their mother Coatlicue but was defeated, dismembered, and cast down by Huitzilopochtli. Her dismembered body is depicted on the stone at the base of the Templo Mayor.

In Mexica cosmology, the current world age — the fifth in a series of creations and destructions. The Sun Stone (Calendar Stone) depicts the four previous "suns" (world ages) and the current fifth. The fifth sun requires human sacrifice to keep moving — the cosmological justification for Mexica warfare and sacrifice.

The most precious material in Mesoamerica — associated with water, maize, breath, and life. Green = the color of growing maize and precious water. Rulers wore jade as a sign of life-giving power. Olmec jade figurines, Maya jade death masks. Jade was more valuable than gold to Mesoamerican cultures.

Long iridescent green tail feathers of the resplendent quetzal bird. The most sacred and valuable material in Mexica culture — associated with Quetzalcoatl and reserved for rulers and high priests by sumptuary law. The feathered headdress attributed to Moctezuma II is the most elaborate surviving example.

Precisely cut stone blocks fitted together without mortar. Inka masonry at Machu Picchu achieves such precision that a knife blade cannot fit between stones. Earthquake-resistant because the stones can flex and resettle. Required extraordinary skill and planning — Inka state directed construction labor (mit'a).

Inka cosmological organization of Cusco radiating 41 sacred lines (ceques) from the Coricancha (sun temple) to huacas (sacred sites) across the landscape. Organized ritual calendar, kinship, and landscape simultaneously. Machu Picchu may have been located on a ceque.

Andean concept of sacred power residing in an object, place, or person. Mountains (apus), springs, unusual rocks, and human-made structures can all be huacas. Machu Picchu's Intihuatana stone is a huaca. The concept is central to understanding Inka landscape cosmology.

"Hitching post of the sun" (Quechua) — carved stone pillar at Machu Picchu used for astronomical observation. At the winter solstice the sun sits directly above the pillar with no shadow. Spanish colonial authorities destroyed most Intihuatana stones; Machu Picchu's survives.

Inka labor tax — citizens owed periodic labor service to the state in lieu of monetary taxes. Mit'a built roads, temples, and cities including Machu Picchu. Voluntary in exchange for food, materials, and protection. Spanish colonizers perverted it into forced mining labor — a key distinction.

Round, partially subterranean ceremonial room in Ancestral Puebloan architecture. Entered by ladder through a hole in the roof (the same opening serves as smoke hole). Contains a sipapu (small hole = entrance to/from underworld), fire pit, and ventilation shaft. Great kivas served community-scale ritual; small kivas served family/clan.

A small hole in the floor of a kiva representing the entrance to/from the underworld — the origin point through which the first humans emerged. Central to Puebloan cosmology: the world is layered, and humans ascended from below. Not in every kiva; its presence marks the space as cosmologically complete.

Spanish word for "town" or "village," applied to both the architectural type (multi-story stone or adobe dwellings) and the peoples who built them. Ancestral Puebloans (formerly "Anasazi") are the ancestors of today's Pueblo peoples including Hopi, Zuni, and San Ildefonso. "Anasazi" is a Navajo term considered pejorative by Pueblo peoples.

An earthwork constructed in the shape of an animal or being — distinguished from burial mounds (conical/flat-topped) and platform mounds. Great Serpent Mound (Ohio) is the largest surviving effigy mound in the world. Most visible only from the air or in plan — challenges the assumption that art requires a static viewing position.

Northwest Coast ceremonial feast in which a host chief redistributes accumulated wealth — food, blankets, copper shields, and art objects — to guests. The more you give away, the higher your status. Transformation masks, totem poles, and other art objects are displayed and sometimes destroyed to demonstrate wealth. Banned by Canada 1885–1951.

The standardized formal system of Northwest Coast art: thick black primary lines (ovoids for joints, U-forms for secondary elements, S-curves connecting them), red for secondary body parts, blue-green for tertiary areas. Applied to masks, poles, boxes, and woven objects. Not decoration — each element encodes meaning about the depicted being.

A Northwest Coast mask with an outer face that opens via strings during ceremony to reveal an inner face — enacting the transformation between human and spirit forms. Used in winter ceremonials to dramatize clan origin stories. The opening and closing is the ritual action; the mask is incomplete without performance.

Animal or being that serves as the heraldic identity of a Northwest Coast clan — establishing ancestry, rights, and relationships. Totem poles stack clan crests to narrate genealogy. Claiming a crest without proper lineage is a serious social offense. Potlatch ceremonies validate and publicly confirm crest ownership.

Plains warrior honor system: touching an enemy in battle without killing them was considered a higher honor than killing at a distance. Coup sticks (specially designed contact weapons) are depicted on painted hides and Ledger Art. The act, not the kill, is the subject of Plains pictographic art.

Plains pictographic tradition that moved from hide to paper (government-issued ledger books) after Euro-American contact. Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho artists used the same pictographic conventions on the new surface — a continuity-through-change that the AP exam tests directly.

Traditional Maya woman's tunic woven on a backstrap loom. Pattern placement, colors, and motifs identify the wearer's village of origin — a visual language of community identity. Woven on a backstrap loom that has been used in Mesoamerica since at least 300 BCE. Still in daily use by millions of Maya women.

A simple but technically demanding loom consisting of a bar attached to a fixed point (tree, post) and a strap around the weaver's hips. Tension is controlled by the weaver's body. Used across Mesoamerica and Andean cultures for millennia. Produces complex patterned textiles with consistent thread counts impossible on simpler looms.

Ceramic technique in which oxygen is removed from the kiln during firing, causing carbon to be deposited in the clay — turning it black. María Martínez's San Ildefonso blackware uses burnished (shiny) slip designs on matte (unpolished) grounds, both turning black in the same reduction atmosphere.

The return of cultural property to its people or nation of origin. The feathered headdress attributed to Moctezuma II (held in Vienna's Weltmuseum) is the most prominent Unit 5 repatriation case — Mexico has requested its return for decades. NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1990) governs repatriation in the US.

A culture whose innovations shape subsequent civilizations. The Olmec are called Mesoamerica's "mother culture" — their art, cosmology, calendar system, ball game, and urban planning influenced subsequent Maya, Teotihuacan, and Aztec cultures. The term is contested: some scholars prefer "sister cultures" or reject hierarchical framing.

The main north-south axis of Teotihuacan, lined with temples and platform mounds. Named by later Aztecs who believed the platforms were tombs of gods. The Pyramid of the Sun faces west off the Avenue; the Pyramid of the Moon terminates it to the north. Organizes the entire city's cosmological layout.