Contacts with and Influences on Central Mexico

The Maya did not live in an isolated forest, sealed off from their surroundings, but rather they were agents of cultural exchange. The Maya organized currents of economic exchange and cultural communication with not only neighboring societies around the Maya region but even toward more distant political centers. Cacaxtla, toward the north end of present-day Tlaxcala State in central Mexico, was an Epi-Classic site with a significant amount of artistic and political influence from the Maya. This small earthenware sculpture of the rain god Tlaloc is from that site. The massive headdress is shaped as a jaguar's head.

Regional Museum of Querétaro

The colorful mural paintings of Cacaxtla are its most well-known feature, and they reveal heavy Maya influences this far into central Mexico. This is a replica of the side panel of a wall. The figure in profile here, identified by the calendrical signs of 3 Deer and 7 Reptile-Eye, wears a headdress similar to those worn in the Maya metropolis of Tikal, from the Petén lowlands of north Guatemala. His skin is painted black as a sign of his priestly occupation.

National Museum of Anthropology and History

In the K'ichee' Maya accounts from the Popol Vuh mythology, the creator gods made the present generation of humanity from maize. As beings inherently made of maize, humans must subsist from it. The connection between the human being and the maize is made through their life stages, but physical similarities were also made. The tuft of hair from the end of the maize ear resembles the hair upon the human head, and their similitude is made obvious in this replica of a Cacaxtla wall mural. The ears of maize emerging from the central stalk are human heads. The plant itself grows in a shallow stream of water, and toward the lower left corner a frog ascends a flooded staircase.

National Museum of Anthropology and History

During the Classic period, when Maya cities were flourishing with metropolitan areas counting to tens of thousands of people, major urban centers were also prevailing in southern and central Mexico. In the latter case, the major city of the central Mexican highlands was Teotihuacan, where the famous so-called "Sun" and "Moon Pyramids" stand. Teotihuacan leaders made political alliances through marriages with Maya nobles, and they brought iconic symbols from their homeland into the Maya region, such as the owl shield and the goggled rain god emblem. Maya art also entered Teotihuacan, as shown with this bowl. A divinity's head appears in profile beneath the arch of a great serpent.

Teotihuacan

Maya emissaries also appeared in regional artistic styles, as here in this large Zapotec urn from Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico. The avian headdress recalls the "Wide-Beak Bird" deity of Monte Albán art, but the personage wearing it has clear Maya features, including cranial deformation characteristic of the elite. This polychrome urn dates to the Monte Albán II phase (100 BCE - 200 CE).

National Museum of Anthropology and History

Carved shell ornamentation, especially from marine conch, was widely produced among the Huaxtec Maya of the central Gulf of Mexico coast. The Huasteca region, named for this early offshoot Maya civilization, covers a verdant lowland terrain that stretches from the gulf coast to as far west as east Querétaro and San Luis Potosí states in central Mexico. The shell bracelet and rings here are from Querétaro, and they imitate the craft of the Pánuco region of northernmost Veracruz.

Regional Museum of Querétaro