Architecture of Teotihuacan the City Term Paper

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4).

The other structures of Teotihuacan use the same architectural language in varying forms and to differing scales. Residential buildings stand upon platforms and are arranged around depressed courtyards; palaces follow a pattern of low buildings arranged around columned patios, creating a unified, enclosed form; ceremonial structures use the talus-and-tablero profile and large flat platforms. The earliest period of construction was the most austere, with little decoration, but later structures - from around 300 a.D. - are marked by decorative friezes and other sculpture, and traces of painted decoration.

The architectural influence of Teotihuacan can be seen throughout Central America in the Classic period and later. The economic importance of the city was echoed in its cultural and religious influence, seen in the wide dissemination of the Feathered Serpent, originating with Teotihuacan's Quetzalcoatl, as a symbol of religious and political authority throughout Mesoamerica. The basic form of the Teotihuacan temples, the flat-topped pyramid using the talus-and-tablero configuration, with the latter providing scope for decorative and symbolic sculpture, is found throughout the region by the third century a.D., for example Kaminaljuyu in the Guatemalan highlands, Tikal in the Maya lowlands, and Matacapan in southern Veracruz, is outlined, and was later revived by the Aztec civilization.

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The significance of the form in linking sky to earth, its embodiment of the concept of a quadrilateral sacred space, and its imposing nature, established it as a primal form of religious and symbolic architecture in pre-Columbian central America. Elsewhere the rigid planning of Teotihuacan did not always find an echo - Maya cities, for example, are more sinuous and organic - but the carefully judged relationship between temples and sacred roadways found at Teotihuacan are taken up at Tikal and elsewhere.

There is no doubt that Teotihuacan exerted a vast influence across Mesoamerica during the Classic period, with its artisans producing tools and other articles for trade, its merchants travelling widely and its culture achieving great prestige. The dissemination of Teotihuacan patterns and motifs in architecture was just one expression of this dominant influence; an influence that remained significant even after the fall of the city itself in the 7th century a.D......

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