Avenues of Death: Pre Columbian Architecture

Question 1

Key Themes

Answer 1

• Stepped pyamids
  
  • Ritual + ceremony organised around these stuctures
• Observe landscape + astrology
• Aligning landscape with important planets
• Creating structures that mirror the landscape (volcanoes, moutains)
• Tablero and talud motif
• Plazas
• Ball Courts

Question 2

Plan of Teotihuacan, Valley of Mexico

c. 200 BC – 100 AD

Answer 2

• Vast planned urban development
• Large population (as many as 200,000)
• North-South causeway, horizontality
• Pyramid of the Moon (and plaza) at North end
• Pyramid of the Sun (and plaza) to East
• Attended step pyramids aligning Avenue of the Dead
• Temple Compound and Temple of Quetzalquotl at South
• Water brought in via Rio Grande

Question 3

Temple of Quetzalcoatl, Teotihuacan 200BC - 100 AD

Answer 3

• Used for ritual sacrifice
• Reminiscent of mountains + volcanoes in landscape
• Stepped pyramid - ziggurat structure
• Battered, sloped sides
• Symbolic associations with the plumed and the fired serpent
• Tablero - frieze of random stones or sculptural relief, framed by plain mouldings
• Talud - steps, or angled plain
• **Might have to draw for exam

Question 4

Zapotec Ball Court,

Monte Alban, valley of Oaxaca, Mexico

c. 600 BC – 1000 AD

Answer 4

• Setting for ritual games
• Battle to the death
• Pleasure loving people, space for entertainment

Question 5

Governor’s palace [Mayan]

Uxmal, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

c. 900

Answer 5

• Stands on large, levelled platform of earth - forms the tablero
• Highly decorative frieze
  
  • Sculptural relief
  • Gods, snakes, birds
• Grand talud element
• Central doorway aligned with Venus
  
  • Associated with death + rebirth
• Triangular element above the doorway
  
  • Guides interior volume
  • Use of corbelling

Question 6

Machu Picchu, Peru, c. 1450

including the Intihuatana – ‘the hitching post of the sun’

Answer 6

• Mach Pichcu - complex of palaces, baths, storage rooms, houses
• Carved from single rock
• Perfect north-south alignment with surrounding geography
• Shape actually mirrors surrounding peaks
• Acts as astronomical observatory
• Ritual + ceremony dictated by cosmology
• ‘Hitches the sun’ in between two equinoxes