Pre-Columbian cultures clearly understood the wheel, toys like this prove it. So why do you think wheeled transport never became widespread in the Americas before European contact? Was it terrain, lack of suitable draft animals, cultural preference, or something else entirely?
is a carved, circular Aztec stone, depicting the dismembered body of the Aztec moon goddess, Coyolxauhqui, who was vanquished by her brother, the sun god Huitzilopochtli. It was discovered by utility workers in 1978 while digging near the Zócalo. Originally, the stone was situated at the base of the stairs of the Templo Mayor, the main temple of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.
A Maya stone lintel was recently returned to Mexico after it was taken to the Mexican consulate in New York by an unnamed US businessman. But hours after its official repatriation on 16 April, experts determined the piece had actually come from Guatemala. Guatemala’s cultural ministry has now formally requested the object’s repatriation from the Mexican government through diplomatic channels.
Guatemala’s cultural ministry said in a statement that technical analysis based on bibliographic research, comparative studies and consultations with archaeologists had concluded that the lintel came from the country’s Petén Basin. Consequently, it is considered part of Guatemala’s cultural heritage.
Guatemala’s cultural minister, Luis Méndez Salinas, said the government has already begun formal efforts to recover the artefact. The process is being coordinated through Guatemala’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “There is a very positive attitude, as has been the case in recent years, towards this type of collaboration,” Méndez told local media in Guatemala, “so that cultural heritage can return to its place of origin.”
The limestone lintel, dating from the Mesoamerican Classic period (AD600-AD900), shows a complex ritual scene associated with the Maya ruler Cheleew Chan K’inich. The lintel remained hidden from public view for decades and passed through private collections before recently reappearing in New York.
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/05/18/guatemala-maya-stone-lintel-mayuy-mexico-repatriation
The "aquilla" (when executed in metal) or "kero" (when made of wood) was the principal ritual libation vessel among the peoples of ancient Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile. This distinctive vessel form has ancient origins but became particularly prevalent during the Early Intermediate Period (100-600 CE). This dynamic time witnessed socio-political intensification and an increase in the numbers of political elites throughout the Andes, with an interconnected multiplication of aristocratic ceremonial events that emphasized hierarchy and authority. The ritual consumption of "chicha" (maize beer), the mildly alcoholic beverage traditionally served in aquillas or keros, was integral to these politically charged social events.
This libation vessel diverges from the typical aquilla's beaker form, being much taller and narrower than most.
The Chimú aquilla is unusually tall and embellished with a frontal face. The choice to execute it in precious silver also marks it as particularly significant, perhaps for an important ceremony or for placement in the tomb of an elite.
The vocative is a grammatical case used to call or attract the attention of a person or party.
English no longer has a vocative case, but the particle O is sometimes employed to approximate its quality, such as in the phrase “O ye of little faith.” Nahuatl had (has?) a vocative particle that attaches to a noun, forming a stress group with it. Its earliest description can be found in Andrés de Olmos’s 1547 grammar:
> También se debe denotar que en el vocativo hay variación, porque siempre acaba en é. Y, para denotar o señalar este vocativo, usan en todos los nombres de una de estas tres partículas: tzé, né, é.
> Ex.: Pēdrohé, Pēdrohtzé, Pēdrohtzīné.
> Y si el nombre acabare en eh, tomará en el vocativo otra é. Ex.: Tlaōleh, dueño del maíz, vocativo tlaōlehé.
A few decades later, in 1571, Alonso de Molina published, along with his famous dictionary, a grammar textbook where he spoke more on the vocative case:
> Así mismo es de notar que no pusimos el vocativo en la declinación de los dos nombres arriba declinados por casos, por cuanto entre los dichos casos solo el vocativo tiene distinta y diferente terminación del nominativo, así en el número singular como en el plural, porque tiene su terminación en é con acento agudo.
> Ejemplo del singular:
> Oquichtli, varón, vocativo oquichtlé, ah varón!
> Piltōntli, muchacho, vocativo piltōntlé, ah muchacho!
> Ejemplo de plural:
> Tlapītzqueh, tañedores de flauta, vocativo tlapītzquehé, ah tañedores!
> Y cuando el nominativo tiene la terminación en eh, el vocativo toma otra é. Ejemplo:
> Tlaōleh, el dueño del maíz, vocativo tlaōlehé, ah dueño del maíz!
> Mīleh, señor o dueño de la heredad o de la tierra que se cultiva y siembra, vocativo mīlehé, ah dueño de la heredad!
> Tlahtohqueh, señores, vocativo tlahtohquehé, ah señores!
> Y débese también de notar que solamente los varones usan de vocativo (como arriba dijimos), y no las mujeres, las cuales no usan del dicho vocativo en singular ni en plural; de manera que cuando llaman a alguno dicen oquichtlí en lugar de oquichtlé, ah varón!
> Ítem, dicen tlahtoāní en lugar de tlahtoānié, ah señor! etc.
The stress of the noun shifts entirely onto the clitic particle é, marked in later texts with an acute accent. It was also noted that this form of speech was used only by men. Women instead shifted the stress onto the final syllable of the noun itself, adding no additional element—what Antonio del Rincón, in 1595, describes as women’s “affected pronunciation”:
> Así, en el número singular como en el plural, diferencian el vocativo añadiendo una é; v.g., Pedrohé, teōpixquehé. Aunque las mujeres, sin poner esta é, solo diferencian el vocativo con su pronunciación afectada.
In book five of his grammar, regarding vowel lengths and diacritics, he mentions the stress shift in the vocative and remarks on how unintuitive it is for native speakers to pronounce words without using a penultimate stress pattern.
> Nota que nunca se pone acento agudo en la última si no es en la é de los vocativos, v.g., totēucyōé, Diosé. Y es tan natural esta pronunciación a los mexicanos, que aunque se les diga un vocablo español de los que tienen aguda la última, no lo pronuncian de esa manera, sino que antes se van a pronunciarlo como en latín, v.g., si les decimos que digan oración, no lo pueden pronunciar así, antes dicen como en latín, ōrātiō.
In his 1645 grammar, Horacio Carochi repeats much of the above while emphasizing the genderlectical nature of this feature:
> Las mujeres no usan de esta é en el vocativo, pero levantan mucho la postrera sílaba del nombre con afectación mujeril.
In his edition of Carochi, James Lockhart emphasizes that the female version of the vocative is still a true grammatical case.
> This still constitutes a true vocative, involving omission of the second person subject prefix; unless given the special pronunciation, nopiltzīn, for example, would mean He or she is my child, not O my child. The distinct masculine and feminine vocatives are adhered to strictly in texts of all kinds.
For a long time, I assumed this feature hadn’t survived into modern Nahuatl, but it has, at least in the dialects found in Mecayapán and Tatahuicapan de Juárez. According to Carl Wolgemuth’s grammar from 1981 (second edition: 2002).
> The vocative forms are the ones used to mark out the person to whom the word is directed. There are three forms ... the second is used by males to call to someone of the same or lesser status ... éi is added to the name of a person:
Pēdroéi, Peter!
Pābloéi, Paul!
Juanīyohéi, Little John!
Jōliohéi, Julius!
Interestingly, the traditional female vocative is considered in these dialects to be a “conversational vocative” that anyone can use, regardless of gender:
> Conversational Vocative: The voice is raised and the last syllable of the name is accented. Also, h is added if the word does not have it.
Pēdróh, Peter!
Pāblóh, Paul!
Jōlióh, Julius!
Mariyáh, Mary!
Crafted from 57 individual jade tiles, along with obsidian for the pupils, and seashell elements for the nose and mouth adornments
This gilded copper disk featuring a three-dimensional butterfly at its center was produced by Moche metalsmiths on Peru’s North Coast. The ornament was originally cut from a larger sheet of hammered copper and then gilded (Lechtman, 1982; Schorsch, 1998). The disk features a solid roundel at the center surrounded by concentric bands of step motifs. The outermost ring is adorned with gilded dangles suspended by copper bands attached to the back of the disk. There are additional disks at vertices within the roundel yielding what must have been a dazzling spectacle when displayed in the sun. The gilded butterfly is represented with notable attention to anatomical detail, including its spread spotted wings, each inscribed with the wing veins, an abdomen with the sections apparent, and a head inlaid with shell and turquoise eyes. The insect is attached to the main body of the disk by six thin copper legs. These appendages would have permitted a slight movement of the figure as the disk was moved suggesting the idea of flight. The wires that hold the dangles are oriented so that only when the butterfly is pointing up do the dangles hang properly. The cut-out design may suggest a sense of place, as step designs are often associated with architecture: they may represent mirror images of temple steps or a repeating stepped wave design common in representations of buildings in Moche ceramics.
The function of disks such as the present example is unclear. They may have served as shield frontals, attached to a cane backing, but the delicate nature of the butterfly would have made this work impractical in battle. More likely, this disk served as part of the ceremonial regalia deployed in ritual performance. Alternatively, these disks may have been attached to textile banners or wooden supports of some sort. In either case, the presence of only one or two holes for attachment also seems to indicate that disks like this were not used in activities that involved strenuous motion.
The Moche (also known as the Mochicas) flourished on Peru’s North Coast from AD 200-850, centuries before the rise of the Incas. Over the course of some six centuries, the Moche built thriving regional centers from the Nepeña River Valley in the south to perhaps as far north as the Piura River, near the modern border with Ecuador, developing coastal deserts into rich farmlands and drawing upon the abundant maritime resources of the Pacific Ocean’s Humboldt Current. Although the Moche never formed a single centralized political entity, they shared unifying cultural traits such as religious practices (Donnan, 2010).
This object was said to have been found at the burial site of Loma Negra, which was one of the most northern outposts of Moche culture. Loma Negra works in metal share similar iconography with ceramics and metalwork found at Moche sites father to the south, such as Ucupe (Bourget, 2014). The precise relationship between the Loma Negra and the Moche “heartland” remains a subject of debate, however (Kaulicke, 2006).
These silver hats were originally covered with fabric, as can be seen in the remaining surface pattern. The holes in each side were used for ties. 11” in height.