ARTKids - ARTAges Middle Ages in Non-Western Areas Page 3

ARTAges- Middle Ages in Non-Western Areas Page 3

Mayan, Mexico 300 - 1500 AD

The Maya, a Native American people of Mexico and the northern part of Central America, produced intricate relief carvings—that is, sculpture in which the figures project from a background surface, as pictured here. The relief art either adorned buildings or stood alone as stelae (inscribed stone slabs and pillars). Maya sculpture frequently depicted rulers and gave dates and other information about these rulers. Sculpture and other art forms were also used to record important events and to portray deities and their activities.
George Swain/Liaison Agency

Although the majority of Maya ruins and artifacts are found in Mexico, this Maya figure sits on the coast of Cuba in Varadero.
George Hunter/ALLSTOCK, INC.

An ancient Native American culture that represented one of the most advanced civilizations in the western hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans. The people known as the Maya lived in the region that is now eastern and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras. The Maya culture reached its highest development from about AD 300 to 900. The Maya built massive stone pyramids, temples, and sculpture and accomplished complex achievements in mathematics and astronomy, which were recorded in hieroglyphs (a pictorial form of writing).

The Maya developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing to record not only astronomical observations and calendrical calculations, but also historical and genealogical information. Many recent advances have occurred in the decipherment of the Mayan script. These breakthroughs made it possible to conclude that Mayan hieroglyphs were a mixture of glyphs that represent complete words and glyphs that represent sounds, which were combined to form complete words. Scribes carved hieroglyphs on stone stelae, altars, wooden lintels, and roof beams, or painted them on ceramic vessels and in books made of bark paper.

From Encarta

Aztec, Mexico 1350 - 1520 AD

The ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica developed complex calendar systems based on overlapping cycles of time. The Aztec calendar stone, carved from a piece of basalt weighing over 22 metric tons, depicts sun gods at its center, which represent present and past eras. The suns are encircled by several segmented rings, some with hieroglyphs, which show the divisions of Aztec cycles of time.
Macduff Everton/The Image Works

This Aztec mask is made of wood covered with polished pieces of turquoise. The teeth and eyes are fashioned from shell. Like most Aztec art, it probably had religious significance and was used for specific dances or rituals.

Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

Most of the art produced by the Aztec expressed aspects of their religion. Brilliantly colored paintings, done mainly on walls and amatl (paper made of pounded bark), depicted religious ceremonies and stiff, angular gods. The Aztec carved freestanding idols and bas-relief wall sculptures on their temple-pyramids. Stone sculptures were often made to represent gods and sacrificial victims.

One of their most famous surviving Aztec sculptures is the so-called calendar stone, which weighs 22 metric tons and measures 3.7 m (12 ft) in diameter. The calendar stone represents the Aztec universe. The face of the Aztec sun god is carved in the center. Surrounding it are circular bands of designs that symbolize the days and the heavens. The Aztec also carved small, realistic figures of people and animals out of quartz, obsidian (volcanic glass), and jade.

The Aztec wrote in pictographs, or small pictures symbolizing objects or the sounds of syllables. They also used pictographs in their counting system, which was based on the number 20. A picture of a flag indicated 20 items; a fir tree represented 20 times 20 items, or 400; and a pouch indicated 400 times 20 items, or 8000. Pictographs could not express abstract ideas but were useful for recording history, conducting business, and maintaining genealogy and landholding records.

From Encarta

Inca, Peru 1100 - 1532 AD
The Incas were skilled in such crafts as textiles, pottery, and metalwork. They wove wool and cotton into intricate geometric patterns. In addition to painted pottery vessels, the Incas made small objects of clay that were sometimes decorated with animal forms. They created a few standardized forms, chiefly llamas and human figurines, in stone and metal. Goldsmithing was an Inca specialty. Smiths who worked gold and silver lived in a special district and did not have to pay taxes. The best examples of their art have not survived, because the Spanish melted most Inca articles made of gold and shipped them to Spain. Craftsmen made wide use of copper and bronze for tools and ornaments, while fashioning gold and silver into jewelry and other items for use by the nobility or the priests.

The availability of gold facilitated the creation of jewelry in large quantities among the Moche culture of pre-Columbian Peru. This piece, known as a "tweezer" pendant, features stylized bird heads and a feline image. It was made between ad 200 and 700 and is now part of the collection of the Museo Oro of Peru.
Tom McHugh/Photo Researchers, Inc.

From Encarta