fluence, these larger polities built impressive administrative and ritual centers that
expressed their growing dominance in regional affairs. Whether or not these urban
centers can be called true “cities,” it is clear that they evolved as the “greater among
equals” in their respective regions with regard to elaborate architectural features
such as large pyramids, temples, fortifications, and monumental sculpture. These
early centers served not only as administrative and trade foci, but also as seats for
the ruling families’ ancestor cults and for increasingly centralized celestial, earth,
and rain deity cults.
It was during this period that the important early centers, such as La Venta and
San Lorenzo, began to exercise religious and political influence over areas far greater
than their immediate environs. In such ceremonial centers, we see the expression of
the trend, as noted before, toward increasing complexity and integration of regional
traditions. This was reflected in the emergence and wide diffusion of cults dedicated
to major deities. One such case of this pattern can be observed in the ubiquitous dis-
tribution of the famous Olmec “were-jaguar” images in the central Gulf Coast and in
adjacent regions. It is inferred that these strange beings may have represented divine
ancestors by whose moral and political authority the Olmec elite exported their tra-
dition via trade and other, possibly more aggressive, forms of contact. Furthermore,
evidence from the Gulf Coast site of Tres Zapotes and other sites farther south and
west suggests that the unique Mesoamerican calendrical system, whose sacred astro-
nomical and solar cycles underwrote the political authority of later (Mayan) theo-
cratic states, originated with the Olmecs and other Formative peoples.
Classic Period Mesoamerican Religion
The Classic period (A.D. 200–900) is considered elsewhere in this text (Chapter 1).
Here it is reiterated that we attribute to this period the consolidation of theocratic
statecraft throughout Mesoamerica, in hundreds of variants, stretching from Central
Mexico to Honduras and possibly farther south. All of the city-states of this period
were administratively focused on carefully planned ceremonial centers that were
characterized by monumental religious architecture and elaborate subsidiary struc-
tures. All of the polities appear to have been ruled by hereditary divine kings who lived
surrounded by architectural and artistic expressions of their grandeur. The arts, sci-
ences, and writing flourished, all in the service of centralized, divine kingship. It can
be said without exaggeration that Mesoamerica’s remarkable cultural achievements
of this period—running the gamut from astronomy, mathematics, architecture, and
urban design to calendrics, writing, sculpture, mural painting, and sophisticated
polychrome ceramic art—were all focused on the symbolic representation and le-
gitimation of centralized and unified religious and political authority systems.
Indeed, as far as we have been able to interpret the meaning of the great urban
centers of this period, it seems clear that their overall spatial design and major struc-
tures expressed nothing less than divine cosmograms. For example, Teotihuacan, which
at its peak (circa A.D. 500) had a population of 150,000 and thus ranked as one of the
handful of the world’s great cities at that time, commemorated the very birthplace of
the gods. The Aztecs, who rose to power almost 1,000 years later, remembered Teoti-
huacan with the greatest of awe. Davíd Carrasco notes that the Aztecs attributed the
CHAPTER 14 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS OF MESOAMERICA 509