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In the 700s BCE, the Zapotec began constructing a city located at Monte Albán.
This city included pyramids, elaborate tombs, and even a ball field. The city flourished primarily from 300 to 900 C.E., and the settlement grew to become the largest and most important center in Mesoamerica.
The Zapotec often sculpted urns in honor of the deities they worshipped. This example is an urn sculpted to represent Cocijo, the god of rain and lightening. He had a human body and jaguar and serpent features. It is now held at the Stanford Cantor Museum.
The Andes is a mountain range in modern day Peru that has always been abundant in natural resources.The long wet season is beneficial to agriculture, the many river valleys are fertile, and fish are plentiful. But all that water created the need for an agricultural technique called terrace farming that began to be developed in the Andes. This allowed the growth of some of the earliest sophisticated civilizations in South America.
The temple ruins at ChavÍn de Huántar, the most important surviving settlement of the Chavin civilization, include many common ChavÍn motifs, such as people, birds, cats, crocodiles, and serpents. Human and animals heads like this one are a common motif in Chavin art, which can be found spread over a wide territory.
The archaeological site of Chavin gave its name to the culture that developed between 1500 and 300 B.C. in this high valley of the Peruvian Andes. This former place of worship is one of the earliest and best-known pre-Columbian sites. Its appearance is striking, with the complex of terraces and squares, surrounded by structures of dressed stone, and the mainly zoomorphic ornamentation.
Mesoamerica is a region that is defined by the cultural similarities of it's native population. It extended from central Mexico through most of Central America. And although the Aztecs and the Mayans are known as the the most famous civilizations to thrive in this region, they most certainly weren't the first.
On this tour, you will be able to view some of the ancient art and architecture from this region.