512 UNIT 4 MESOAMERICAN CULTURAL FEATURES
Figure 14.4 A schematic drawing
of a Mesoamerican ball court in the
shape of a capital “I.” Redrawn from
The Quiché Mayas of Utatlán: The
Evolution of a Highland Guatemala
Kingdom,by Robert Carmack.
University of Oklahoma Press, 1981.not a period devoid of political finesse, ideological sophistication, or remarkable
achievement in social engineering, trade and marketing, public works, and urban de-
sign. To this period of course belong the rise and consolidation of the Aztec empire
as well as a great number of lesser imperial initiatives in other parts of Mexico and
Guatemala (see the account of the Late Postclassic period in Chapter 2).
This period is of particular importance to this text because it is, of course, this
phase of ancient Mesoamerican history that is best known to us, for contact-period
Spanish observers and chroniclers actually witnessed and recorded minute details
of this world even as they were destroying it in order to create colonial New Spain.
Furthermore, as has been discussed in a previous chapter (see Chapters 6), the con-
tact period itself produced massive documentation of ancient Mesoamerican reli-
gion, much of it written by Indians themselves in native languages rendered in Latin
characters, together with drawings, translation, and commentary in Spanish. Thus,