CHAPTER 1 ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF MESOAMERICAN CIVILIZATION 75centers is poorly understood and hotly debated. Long-standing difficulties with dat-
ing architecture at these sites have made empirical evaluation difficult, although re-
cent research suggests that the sites are at least partially contemporaneous. In Central
Mexico, in the tenth century or perhaps earlier, Tula emerged as the largest urban
center since the fall of Teotihuacan, and by around A.D. 1150, it was abandoned (see
the discussion that follows).
One view of the relationship between Tula and Chichén Itzá derives from cen-
tral Mexican and Yucatec native histories, which claim that in A.D. 987, Topiltzín
Quetzalcoatl, a high priest in the Quetzalcoatl (Feathered Serpent) cult at Tula, was
expelled from Tula after a power struggle with Tezcatlipoca. Postclassic Mayan myths
hail Kukulkan’s arrival in the Mayan area (Kukulkan was the name for Quetzalcoatl
in the Yucatec Mayan language). In this view, the architectural and artistic similari-
ties between Tula and Chichén Itzá result from either the direct presence of Toltecs
or else the influence of another Mayan group who had close contact with the Toltecs,
who are generally assumed to be the Chontal or Putun Mayas of the Gulf Coast re-
gion. An alternative view proposes that Chichén Itzá was constructed prior to Tula,
and that influence may have traveled in the opposite direction.
A more holistic view has been offered by William Ringle, George Bey, and Tomas
Gallareta, who argue that Chichén Itzá embraced cultic icons in its art and archi-
tecture linked to the Feathered Serpent cult of interacting elites in the Epiclassic
Mesoamerican world. The spread of this cult in elite culture fostered long-distance
ties between cult centers that facilitated important trade flow through the same net-
works. Although iconographic similarities are greatest between Chichén Itzá and
Tula, some of the same elements are found at many other major Epiclassic/Termi-
nal Classic centers mentioned previously.
Recent considerations of the art of Chichén Itzá’s ballcourt by Linda Schele and
Peter Matthews reveal that the new cosmopolitan styles fused aspects of Classic Pe-
riod traditional Mayan creation mythology (e.g., maize god and ball game sacrifice,
agricultural fertility, world tree axis mundi,aged pauahtun/sky bearer gods) with in-
novative international elements shared with distant Mexican sites (e.g., solar disks,
feathered serpents, atlantean warrior figures, chacmool statues). In addition to adopt-
ing key ideas and symbolism of international styles of the Epiclassic, the Mayan area
also contributed to the mix. The use of foreign elements for royal legitimization was
ubiquitous at Classic period Mayan cities long before Chichén Itzá arose to power.
Chichén Itzá exemplifies institutional transformations from the Classic to Post-
classic periods. Although nobles were previously involved in affairs of royal courts, the
art at Chichén Itzá reflects the involvement of multiple powerful factions to an ex-
tent that is unmatched by any other site in Mesoamerica. Inscribed panels and mu-
rals of the Great Ballcourt, hundreds of carved columns and inner murals at the
Temple of the Warriors (see Figure 1.17), and many other programs show warriors,
priests, captives, councils of officials, merchants, and other actors that celebrate the
city’s diverse and multiethnic segments. Elaborate outlying palaces and ballcourts,
many connected to the center by radial sacbes (elevated roads) attest to the pres-
ence of a large noble class.