Mesoamerica

The history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica is divided into several periods:

● The Paleo-Indian (first human habitation–3500 BCE)

● The Archaic (3500–2000 BCE)
●The Preclassic or Formative (2000 BCE–200 CE)
● The Classic (200–1000 CE)
● The Postclassic (1000–1697 CE).
The Preclassic period (2000 BCE–200 CE)
The first complex civilization to develop in Mesoamerica was that of the Olmec, who
inhabited the gulf coast region of Veracruz. The name “Olmec” means “rubber people”. It was
given to them by archeologists when they were discovered (because it was a region where the
people collected rubber), but we don’t known what name the ancient Olmec used for
themselves.
Not much is known about the Olmec. Their civilization lasted roughly from 1500 BCE to
about 400 BCE. But it is believed that Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished in the area since
about 2500 BCE. Scholars have yet to determine the cause of the eventual extinction of the
Olmec culture. We only know that by 400-350 BCE, the population of the Olmec dropped
precipitously.
The Olmecs had an advanced civilization. They are well-known for the colossal sculpted
heads that they left. They range in size from 3.4 m (11 ft) high, to 1.47 m (4 ft 10 in). We
don’t know what their purpose was.
The Olmec may have been the first civilization in
the Western Hemisphere to develop a writing system.
However, what is thought to be their writing system
bears no apparent resemblance to any
other Mesoamerican writing system.

The Long Count calendar (that starts with the creation of

the world) used by many subsequent Mesoamerican
civilizations, as well as the concept of zero, may have
been devised by the Olmec.

The Olmec are strong candidates for originating

the Mesoamerican ballgame so prevalent among later
cultures of the region and used for recreational and
religious purposes. The game was played with a ball made
of solid rubber and weighed as much as 4 kg (9 lbs). It
was played in ballcourts who had long narrow alleys with
slanted side-walls against which the balls could bounce. The 62 glyphs of the Olmec Cascajal Block
Great Ballcourt at Chichen Itza
 Ballplayer painting from the Tepantitla, Teotihuacan murals.

The Maya inherited from the Olmecs this ball game played with a rubber ball about eight inches (20 centimeters)
in diameter. The object was to put the ball through a high ring without using hands. Sometimes the game was
played for simple sport, but sometimes high-ranking captives were forced to play for their lives. The losers were
sacrificed to the gods, and their heads were displayed on racks alongside some ball courts…
Religion: Olmec art shows that such deities as
the Feathered Serpent and a rain supernatural
were already in the Mesoamerican pantheon in
Olmec times. They also seemed to worship a
jaguar god.

Olmec holds a half human-half jaguar baby. Monument 19, from La Venta (1200-400 BC), the
earliest known representation of a feathered serpent in
Mesoamerica.
Note: Some LDS scholars have advanced the idea that the Olmec might be the
Jaredites of the Book of Mormon for the following reasons:

- The Jaredites came to the new land after the construction of the Tower of Babel. A
Catholic priest named Ixtlilxochitl who wrote the history of Mexico in 1568 wrote that,
after the great flood, the people built a very high tower. Their languages were
confounded and they were scattered to all parts of the earth. They eventually came
to Mesoamerica after having first crossed many lands and waters, living in caves and
passing through great trials and tribulations.

- Both the Olmec culture and the Jaredite culture reached their zenith around the same
time period (1500 BC - 600 BC) and covered a large piece of land. They also both
disappeared quite suddenly.

- Both Ixtlilxochitl and Ether 11 talk about a great destruction that occurred prior to the
final civil war destruction. Ixtlilxochitl reports great hurricanes with major
destruction. Ether reports similar phenomena.
- According to the Book of Mormon, the Jaredites were very large people (Ether 15:26-
”And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared for death on the morrow. And
they were large and mighty men as to the strength of men”). When the Nephite Limhi
expedition (Mosiah 8) accidentally discovered the remains of a civilization that had
been destroyed some 200 years earlier, they reported that the breastplates and weapons
of war were very large...too big for a Nephite. Ixtlilxochitl reports that the Mexican's
ancestors were giants, that they had many wars and dissensions among themselves and
that their civilization came to an end in civil war as a result of their grave sins they had
committed.
Bernal Castillo (a Spanish conquistador) records as follows:
"They said that their ancestors had told them, that in times past there had lived among them men and women
of giant size with huge bones, and because they were very bad people of evil manners that they had fought
with them and killed them, and those of them who remained died off. So that we could see how huge and tall
these people had been they brought us a leg bone of one of them which was very thick and the height of a man
of ordinary stature, and that was the bone from the hip to the knee. I measured my self against it and it was as
tall as I am although I am of fair size They brought other pieces of bone like the first but they were already
eaten away and destroyed by the soil. We were all amazed at seeing those bones and felt sure that there must
have been giants in this country, and Our Captain Cortez said to us that it would be well to send that great
bone to Castele so that His Majesty might see it, so we sent it with the first of our agents who went there."
(The History of the Conquest of New Spain p. 286)
The Catholic friar, Diego Durán, recorded as follows;
"That I may leave nothing untold...an aged [Aztec], man from Cholula, about one hundred years old, began to describe
their origins to me. This man... was quite learned in their ancient traditions. When I begged him to enlighten me about
some details I wished to put into this history he asked me what I wanted him to tell. I realized I had found an old and
learned person, so I answered, all that he knew about the history of his Indian nation... He responded: "Take pen and
paper, because you will not be able to remember all that I shall tell you." And [he] began thus:...men of monstrous stature
appeared and took possession of this country. These giants...decided to build a tower so high that its summit would reach
unto heaven. And gathering materials for this building, the giants found clay for bricks and an excellent mortar with which
thdy began to build the tower very swiftly. When they had raised it as high as they could--and it seemed to reach to
heaven--the Lord of the Heights became angry and said to the inhabitants of the heavens,...let us confound
them...Then...those who dwell in the heavens came...and tore down the tower that had been constructed. And the giants,
bewildered and filled with terror, separated and fled in all directions. ...It cannot be denied, nor do I deny, that there have
been giants in this country.“

It’s also interesting to note that Joseph Smith received the same Urim and Thummin that the Jaredite Prophet the brother of
Jared used. (Ether 3:5, D. & C. 17:1) Now, several witnesses said that ”the Urim and Thummin…were too wide for his
eyes, as also for Joseph's, and must have been used by much larger men." (William Smith interview with J.W. Peterson
and W.S. Pender, July 1891, published in Rod of Iron [Independence: Zion's Religion-Literary Society], [February 1924]:
6.)

“…he [Martin Harris] gave me the following account: ‘A gold book…had been dug up in…the State of New York, and
along with it an enormous pair of spectacles [the Urim & Thummin]. These spectacles were so large…” [Martin Harris
said that whosoever]examined the plates through the glasses was enabled not only to read them, but fully to understand
their meaning.” (A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of L.D.S. by B.H. Roberts, p. 102-103)
The classic period (200–1000 CE)
The Mayans:
As the Olmec declined, their neighbors to the east — the Maya — prospered and integrated part
of their culture.
The Maya organized themselves into small city-states instead of one big empire. The largest
was Tikal, which by 750 CE had about 40,000 inhabitants, they were ruled by elites. The city-
states fought each other frequently, one of the main purposes being to capture their enemies in
order to sacrifice them to the Mayan gods. In the Maya region, under
considerable military influence by
Teotihuacan (the city
that dominated the Valley of
Mexico until the early 8th
century), numerous city states
such as Tikal, Uaxactun,
Calakmul, Copán, Quirigua,
Palenque, Cobá, and Caracol
reached their zeniths.
Tikal, Guatemala
We know about the Maya because they developed the most elaborate and sophisticated
writing system of the several different ones used in Mesoamerica. Mayan writing included
both pictographs and symbols for syllables (there could be 13 to 15 different signs for the
same syllable). Since the 1980s scholars have made great strides in deciphering this script
(today’s excerpt is David Stuart). Many carved inscriptions have survived, but unfortunately,
most of their accordion books (on bark or deerskin remain) were destroyed by fanatic
catholic priests. Only 4 Mayan codices remain…

Dresden
Codex
Maya shaman/priests worked out remarkable systems of cosmology and mathematics.
They devised three kinds of calendars. A calendar of the solar year of 365 days governed
the agricultural cycle and a calendar of the ritual year of 260 days dictated daily affairs;
these two calendars coincided every 52 years. A third calendar, called the Long Count
calendar, extended back to the date August 13, 3114 BCE (on the Gregorian calendar), to
record the large-scale passage of time. The Maya calculated a solar year as 365.242 days,
about 17 seconds shorter than the figures of modern astronomers. They also introduced the
concept of zero; the first evidence of zero as a number dates from 357 BCE, but it may go
back further, to Olmec times (as a reminder: Hindu scholars first represented zero in the
800s CE).

The Mayan Calendar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhWItvjk9Yg
Mayan cosmology included the idea that the world
had come to an end four times already and that the
Maya were living in the Fifth Sun (the fifth
world), whose persistence depended on the life
energy of sacrificial blood. In the Mayan creation
story, the Popol Vuh, the gods created people out
of their own genius and sacrifice, nothing else. The
Maya believed that the gods set the Sun burning by
sacrificing themselves to start it. Since they
believed that the Sun’s energy would continue
only with the life-giving energy found in human
blood to replenish it, they practiced ritual
bloodletting achieved by using cactus or bone
spines to pierce their earlobes, hands, tongues or
even penises. They also carried out some ritual
sacrifice of human victims. The Maya may have
inherited their calendar and sacrificial rituals from
the Olmecs.
Meanwhile, in the center of Mexico an amazing city developed: Teotihuacán. Its site was in
the highlands of Mexico, more than a mile (some two kilometers) above sea level, in a place
where water flowing from surrounding mountains created several large lakes. Teotihuacán
began as an agricultural village located about 31 miles (50 kilometers) north of present-day
Mexico City, but by the beginning of the Common Era it had grown to some 50,000
inhabitants. By 500 CE it had an estimated 100,000–200,000 people, to rank as one of the six
largest cities in the world. Not much is understood about its government; its art portrays
deities rather than royalty. Its people expanded Olmec
graphic symbols, but all its books were destroyed about
750 CE, when it seems that unknown invaders burned the
city and reduced its population to a quarter of its former
numbers.
Between 800 and 925 CE Mayan society experienced a rapid transition. The world of cities
ended as populations moved back into the countryside. Historians debate the possible
causes of the change — civil revolts, invasions, erosion, earthquakes, disease, drought.
Likely some combination of these brought on an unusually rapid fading of a once-vibrant
civilization. The Maya didn’t just disappear; several million descendants are still alive
today.
The Aztecs:

The city that carried Mesoamerican civilization to its height proved to be Tenochtitlan,
or “place of the cactus fruit” in their language, Nahuatl. Its people, called the Mexica,
came from northern Mexico looking for a place to settle. All the desirable places were
already inhabited, except an island on the shore of a large lake in the Valley of Mexico,
where they settled in 1325. They were given the name Aztecs by the German explorer
and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt in the early 19th century.

The Mexica/Aztecs built up their food production by creating floating islands of soil,
called chinampas, held together by willow trees. Their men hired themselves out as paid
soldiers to other towns until they became strong enough to conquer others on their own.
The conquests would also provide sacrificial victims for their religious rituals, carried
down from the Olmecs, Mayans, and Teotihuacánians.
Chinampas: Aztec floating gardens
By the early 1500s the Aztecs had conquered most of Mesoamerica and had imposed their
rule on an estimated 11–12 million people. The annual tribute they received in corn alone
amounted to 7,000 tons. They also received 2 million cotton cloaks, as well as jewelry,
obsidian knives, rubber balls, jaguar skins, parrot feathers, jade, emeralds, seashells, vanilla
beans, and chocolate. Without money, everyone was paid in food and goods. Their population
had grown to at least 200,000–300,000 in the capital, several times the size of the
contemporary London of King Henry VIII.

The Aztecs bestowed great honor to their warriors, building their society around a military
elite. A council of the most successful warriors chose the ruler. Warriors could wear fine
cotton cloth and feathers instead of clothing made from the fibers of an agave-like plant; they
were believed to go straight to the paradise of the Sun God if they died in battle. Priests also
ranked among the elite. Most people were commoners who cultivated land and a large
number of slaves worked mostly as domestic servants.
The Aztecs adopted traditions that dated back to the Olmecs. They played the same ball
game and kept a sophisticated calendar. They adopted traditional religious beliefs, holding
that the gods had set the world in motion by their individual acts of sacrifice. Priests
practiced bloodletting on themselves and believed that ritual sacrifice of humans was
essential to prevent the destruction of the Fifth Sun by earthquakes or famine. The god of
war, Huitzilopochli, came to be the prevailing god in Tenochtitlan, and his priests placed
more emphasis on human sacrifice than did earlier traditions. Priests laid the victims —
mostly captives of war — over a curved stone high on a pyramid and cut open the chest
with an obsidian blade to fling the still-beating heart into a ceremonial basin, while the
desired blood flowed down the pyramid.
There was one god that all Mesoamerican cultures shared and who was against human sacrifice:
Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent god.
To the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl was, as his name indicates, a feathered serpent, a flying reptile (much
like a dragon), who was a boundary-maker (and transgressor) between earth and sky. He was a
creator deity having contributed essentially to the creation of Mankind. He was also the patron
god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge.
There are several stories about the birth of Quetzalcoatl. In a version of the myth, Quetzalcoatl
was born by a virgin named Chimalman, to whom the god Onteol appeared in a dream. A new star
appeared when he was born.
There are different versions of the myth of Quetzalcoatl, or the Great White God, as he was
sometimes called, however, we find that the Mesoamericans consistently endow Quetzalcoatl with
the following attributes:
- Quetzalcoatl was the creator of life.
- Quetzalcoatl taught virtue. He also performed miracles and prophesied about the future.
- Quetzalcoatl was the greatest Lord of all.
- Quetzalcoatl had a "long beard and the features of a white man/wore a white robe."
-The Mesoamericans believed Quetzalcoatl would return.
-The children of Quetzalcoatl will become lords and heirs of the earth.
LDS Church president John Taylor, wrote of Quetzalcoatl:
“The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the
Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and
Christ are the same being. But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an
impure Lamanitish source, which has sadly disfigured and perverted the original incidents and
teachings of the Savior’s life and ministry.” John Taylor, Mediation and Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1882)

Teotihuacan
Aztec era stone sculptures of feathered serpents
(National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.)
According to Hernán Cortés, when the Spaniards arrived, the indigenous people thought he was
the “White God” and naively trusted him…

In 1520, just as the Aztec civilization of the Fifth Sun was flourishing, it was destroyed — by a
small group of Spanish conquistadors and their Mexican allies, under the command of Hernán
Cortés. After many battles in which the Spanish used their horses, guns, and steel swords to
their advantage, they surrounded Tenochtitlan and starved its inhabitants; many Aztecs died of
smallpox, to which they had no immunity since it was a disease that originated in cows. When
the Aztecs surrendered, only one-fifth of their initial population remained. Within 10 years the
Spanish controlled all of Mexico, easily overwhelming the traumatized survivors of the
overwhelming disease.

Smallpox hits the

Aztecs - Florentine
Hernán Cortés Codex Book 12