Teotihuacan SPICE

Teotihuacan (100 BCE - 750 CE)

Social
- stratified with an elite class which controlled the state bureaucracy, tax collection, and commerce; dressed and ate differently than the others. Possibly a priestly class.
- craftsmen, over 2% of the population, produced pottery and obsidian tools
- over 66% of the population worked in agriculture

Political
- the elite class used the city's labor resources to bring lands on the outside into production, draining swamps, building irrigation, building terraces into hills, and using chinampas, artificial islands
- elite, priestly class controlled bureaucracy, tax collection, and commerce
- they did not have one single ruler; the individual rulers or ruling dynasty did not have absolute power
- possibly ruled instead by alliances of elite families or their weak king puppets
- relatively peaceful; they had no defensive structures before 500 CE. However they had a military for long-distance trade protection and to collect peasants' agricultural surpluses. They may have also expanded trade relations
- in 500 CE the walls were built and population declined to 40,000, marking weakness. They finally collapsed in 650 CE
- people used to think that they were overwhelmed by a nearby city rival or nomadic warrior peoples from the north
- now, people thing that there was conflict among the elite families and mismanagement of resources, leading to class conflict and loss of public order, pulling down important temples, defacing religious images, burning elite palaces and killing their inhabitants.

Interaction
- they were about 30 miles northeast of Mexico City
- pilgrims came to the city for its religious significance, often becoming permanent residents

Culture
- they were polytheistic and animist, worshipping many gods (including the sun, the moon, a storm-god, and Quetzalcoatl) and lesser spirits
- Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent, believed to the the originator of agriculture and the arts
- human sacrifice was practiced as a sacred duty to the gods and an act essential to the well-being of human society
- priestly class shown in temple murals as well as palace murals
- a great religious center that attracted pilgrims, some of which became permanent residents
- around 200,000 inhabitants at the height
- religious architecture included large pyramids dedicated to the sun and moon, and smaller temples devoted to other gods (over 20 total). These pyramids were arranged along a central avenues
- housing changed as population grew, into apartment-like stone buildings

Economics
- more than two-thirds of the city's occupants worked in agriculture
- used chinampas, artificial islands anchored by trees and made by heaping lake muck and waste on top of reed beds.
These permitted year-round agriculture because they were sub-surface irrigated and resistant to frost
- traded pottery and obsidian tools throughout central mexico and into Maya Guatemala