510 UNIT 4 MESOAMERICAN CULTURAL FEATURES
creation of the fifth age of the cosmos, their own era, to mythical events that took place
at Teotihuacan:It is told that when yet [all] was in darkness, when no sun had shown and no dawn had
broken—it is said—the gods gathered themselves there at Teotihuacan. They spoke....
“Who will take it upon himself to be the sun, to bring the dawn?” (Sahagún 1952–1982,
Book VII:4)It is not surprising, therefore, to find many of the urban centers of the Classic
period dedicated to divine ancestors and their spatial layout to be a replication of the
cosmos. For example, the important east-west axis of ceremonial centers was often
delimited by major architectural features, just as the central ceremonial plazas were
typically laid out in a four-part plan that replicated the four sectors, associated with
the cardinal directions of the divine cosmos. Furthermore, individual structures ap-
pear to have been identified with specific deities and parts of the cosmos. For ex-
ample, in addition to the well-known massive pyramids dedicated to the sun and
moon deities, Teotihuacan has an entire temple structure whose iconography is ded-
icated to a deity whom later cultures identified as Quetzalcoatl (the Feathered Ser-
pent). Murals and other structures at Teotihuacan suggest that supernatural beings
associated with rain, water, and vegetation—most prominently a female water deity—
were also revered in the great capital.
Sacred ceremonial architecture also dominated the urban centers of the Classic
Mayas. For example, Palenque, one of the best studied and most thoroughly under-
stood of the ancient Mayan cities, contains several elegant temple structures (no-
tably the Temple of the Cross and the Temple of the Foliated Cross; see Figure 1.10
and Figure 14.3) that are dedicated to the cosmic tree, from whose trunk and leaves
spring maize deities who are in turn linked to sacred ancestors and, ultimately, to the
sun deity.
Mayan rulers embodied the very life force of the universe and were called Mah
K’ina (Great Sun Lord) or Ahau (Lord). Thus, not only the temple centers from
which they ruled but also the rulers’ bodies themselves constituted living terrestrial
cosmograms.
Another prominent feature of Mayan urban centers was the ball court, an ar-
chitectural form whose spatial distribution spans almost all reaches of ancient
Mesoamerica (Figure 14.4). In the Mayan area, the ball court was, like the cities
themselves, a model of the sacred cosmos. This ball court was invariably recessed in
the earth or was structurally designed to provide a sunken pavement, often in the
shape of a capital “I”. The cosmic region represented was the underworld (Xibalba)
from whose precincts primordial life itself sprang via the sun deity’s battle with the
forces of darkness and death. Hence it was both the Place of Death and the Place of
Regenerative Power. The ball game itself appears to have been played as a ritual of
cosmic renewal whose purpose was to drive the sun, represented by a heavy natural
rubber ball, through a hoop or other structural feature that represented the point
of emergence of the sun at dawn. The consequences for the losing team ranged from
rituals of humiliation to sacrifice.