The Temple of the Maker of the Earth

Pachacamac is located on the coast of Peru and 32 km south of Lima. It was an important sacred site, with an oracle, and burial sites, which was visited by pilgrims of many ancient Andean cultures for over 2,000 years. Pachacamac was sacred up through Incan Empire in the 1400s, and stopped being a site of pilgrimage only with the coming of the Spanish and their alien religion. The site was named after the god of the same name (Pacha Kamaq) who was considered the ‘Maker of the Earth’ by coastal peoples. The god’s sacred wooden statue was worshiped at the site, situated inside a large temple complex built on a stepped earthen platform. There was also likely an oracle on the site in the 1st millennium BCE.

Angkor Wat: A City of Temples

a brief introduction to this famous archaeological treasure of the Khmer Empire

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who died in 1250, was an open atheist. He set up a cultured court to which learned Jews and Muslims were welcomed on an equal basis with Christians. He found Muslim mercenaries to be useful in his struggles against the Pope.

Knotted rattlesnake, Aztec 1100-1520 (postclassic)

Compact and smoothly polished, this rattlesnake displays typical Aztec sculptural techniques. Both the musculature of this snake’s body and its head have been sculpted in great detail. The eyes were probably once inlaid, and ferocious fangs descend from the snake’s upper jaw. Snakes were powerful symbols throughout Mesoamerican history, linked with the sky, rain, and agriculture. Aztecs may have seen the snake’s shedding of its skin as a metaphor for the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth.