"This outstanding study spans four rich civilizations in ancient Mexico, from 1500 B.C. to the Spanish conquest soon after A.D.1500: The "Olmecs," hunters and farmers who worshipped the man-jaguar and became the first great carvers in stone and jade. The culture of "Teotihuacan," with its sumptuous palaces and gigantic Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. The "Toltec" dynasty, whose temples, wreathed with carvings of predatory beasts, serpents and warriors, testify to a new militaristic phase in Mexican history. The "Aztecs," fierce empire-builders whose gods demanded complex rituals and the blood of human sacrifice. Writing for students, travellers and non-specialists, Nigel Davies puts these fascinating cultures into historical context. Drawing on the latest research, he discusses their arts, beliefs and customs, and their changing economic and political conditions, to build up a vivid picture of life in the kingdoms of ancient Mexico." --provided by Goodreads.

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Masterly....The complexities of Mexico's ancient cultures are perceptively presented and interpreted.--Library Journal

The most important political entity in pre-Spanish Mesoamerica was the Tenochca Empire, founded in 1428 when the three kingdoms of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan formed an alliance that controlled the Basin of Mexico and other extensive areas of Mesoamerica. In a unique political structure, each of the three allies headed a group of kingdoms in the core of the Empire. Each capital possessed settlements of peasants both in its own domain and in those of the other two capitals; in conquered areas nearby, the three capitals had their separate tributaries. In The Tenochca Empire Pedro Carrasco incorporates years of research in the archives of Mexico and Spain and compares primary sources, some not yet published, from all three of the great kingdoms. Carrasco takes in the total tripartite structure of the Empire, defining its component entities and determining how they were organized and how they functioned.

This volume accompanies a major international loan exhibition featuring more than three hundred works of art, many rarely or never before seen in the United States. It traces the development of gold working and other luxury arts in the Americas from antiquity until the arrival of Europeans in the early sixteenth century. Presenting spectacular works from recent excavations in Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico, this exhibition focuses on specific places and times—crucibles of innovation—where artistic exchange, rivalry, and creativity led to the production of some of the greatest works of art known from the ancient Americas. The book and exhibition explore not only artistic practices but also the historical, cultural, social, and political conditions in which luxury arts were produced and circulated, alongside their religious meanings and ritual functions. Golden Kingdoms creates new understandings of ancient American art through a thematic exploration of indigenous ideas of value and luxury. Central to the book is the idea of the exchange of materials and ideas across regions and across time: works of great value would often be transported over long distances, or passed down over generations, in both cases attracting new audiences and inspiring new artists. The idea of exchange is at the intellectual heart of this volume, researched and written by twenty scholars based in the United States and Latin America.