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The Cambeba were a populous, organized society in the late pre-Columbian era whose population suffered a steep decline in the early years of the Columbian Exchange. The Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana traversed the Amazon River during the 16th century and reported densely populated regions running hundreds of kilometers along the river.
History, power and legacy: Another large part of the pre-Columbian literature is found carved into monumental structures such as stelae, altars and temples. This kind of literature typically documents power and heritage, memorize victories, ascension to rulership, dedications of monuments, marriages between royal lineages.
Pre-Columbian cultures are documented as primarily oral, although the Mayans and Aztecs -- in present-day Mexico and some Central American countries -- for instance, produced elaborate codices. Maya script consisted of complex glyphs describing history, mythologies, etc. The Incas in present-day Peru expressed written records through Quipu.
Fifteen distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription. [2] The limits of archaeological dating methods make it difficult to establish which was the earliest and hence the progenitor from which the others developed.
During the 19th century, the word 'codex' became popular to designate any pictorial manuscript in the Mesoamerican tradition. In reality, pre-Columbian manuscripts are, strictly speaking, not codices, since the strict librarian usage of the word denotes manuscript books made of vellum, papyrus and other materials besides paper, that have been sewn on one side. [1]
Though there was likely literature in Guatemala before the arrival of the Spanish, all the texts that exist today were written after their arrival. The Popol Vuh is the most significant work of Guatemalan literature in the Quiché language, and one of the most important of Pre-Columbian American literature. It is a compendium of Mayan stories ...
The Zapotec civilization (Be'ena'a "The People"; c. 700 BC–1521 AD) is an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows that their culture originated at least 2,500 years ago.
Mesoamerican literature was typically recorded on codices, though most surviving codices of pre-Columbian literature were written in the Latin alphabet to preserve oral tradition after colonization. Nahuatl literature was divided into cuícatl , which included song and poetry, and tlahtolli , which included prose works of history and discourses.