Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T02:45:21.890Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

INTRODUCTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2007

Extract

This is the twenty-fifth Special Section published in Ancient Mesoamerica, and therefore it represents something of a milestone in the history of the journal. The goal has been to present in each special section a collection of related papers from a single project or region or on a selected topic to provide readers a tightly integrated summary of current research and interpretations. Certainly one of the most compelling and provocative special sections we have published was “Urban Archaeology at Teotihuacan” which appeared in vol. 2, no. 1 (1991). This collection of papers featured two stunning articles on the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, then often referred to as the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. Constructed in the early third century A.D., the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, along with the Sun Pyramid and the Moon Pyramid, was one of the three most powerful monuments in the sacred urban landscape of Teotihuacan. Rubén Cabrera Castro, Saburo Sugiyama, and George L. Cowgill (1991) reported on excavations in the 1980s of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid and the investigation of more than 137 sacrificial burials, including more than 70 males identified as soldiers because of associated offerings, discovered at the base of and underneath the pyramid. In the second article, Alfredo López Austin, Leonardo López Luján, and Saburo Sugiyama (1991) presented their brilliant iconographic analysis of the sculptural facades of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, arguing that the monumental structure was dedicated to the myth of the origin of time and calendric succession, a tangible cosmogonic proclamation that Teotihuacan was “the place where time began.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cabrera Castro, Rubén, Sugiyama, Saburo, and Cowgill, George L. 1991 The Templo de Quetzalcoatl Project at Teotihuacan: A Preliminary Report. Ancient Mesoamerica 2:7792.10.1017/S0956536100000407Google Scholar
López Austin, Alfredo, Luján, Leonardo López, and Sugiyama, Saburo 1991 The Temple of Quetzalcoatl at Teotihuacan: Its Possible Ideological Significance. Ancient Mesoamerica 2:93105.10.1017/S0956536100000419CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Simon, and Grube, Nikolai 2000 Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Spence, Michael W., White, Christine D., Longstaffe, Fred J., and Law, Kimberley R. 2004 Victims of the Victims: Trophies Worn by Sacrificed Soldiers from the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Teotihuacan. Ancient Mesoamerica 15:115.10.1017/S0956536104151018CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuart, David 2000 “The Arrival of Strangers”: Teotihuacan and Tollan in Classic Maya History. In Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, edited by David, Carrasco, Lindsay, Jones, and Scott, Sessions, pp. 465513. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Sugiyama, Saburo 2005 Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership: Materialization of State Ideology at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Teotihuacan. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9780511489563CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Christine D., Spence, Michael W., Longstaffe, Fred J., Stuart-Williams, Hilary, and Law, Kimberley R. 2002 Geographic Identities of the Sacrificial Victims from the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Teotihuacan: Implications for the Nature of State Power. Latin American Antiquity 13:217236.10.2307/971915CrossRefGoogle Scholar