All About the Ruler's Court and Principal Palace in Precontact Texcoco in 900 Seconds

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Multispectral and spectroscopic analysis of key sixteenth century graphic manuscripts, especially Mapa Quinatzin and Codex Xolotl, combined with the often-confused alphabetic sources dependent on them, are presented. New methods of digital annotation of the surface of such graphic manuscripts, or on any information bearing surface, are demonstrated. A few new artifacts, including a stone tlachieloni and ball court ring from the late town historian’s collection are shown as well. The Texcocan state’s construction as a balancing of political, judicial, military, and commercial interests, first presented in the 1980s, rather than older but persistent views of a monolithic dictatorship, is again brought to the fore in light of recent work by Feinman, Blanton, Nicholas, Kowalewski, Fargher, and Carballo on power relations, inequality, and cooperative and pluralistic government. Along the way, Anawalt's prescient (1980), cogent criticism of claimed sumptuary laws is confirmed. All in 900 seconds.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52651