pre-Columbian architecture

Monte Alban (white mountain), the ancient Zapotec capital, 9 km/6 mi west of Oaxaca, Mexico. Building began in c.500 BC, and it became the centre of the Zapotec people and culture of Oaxaca until c.750 AD when it suffered a sudden decline and the people moved down into the surrounding valleys.

Remains of the Inca city of Machu Picchu, set on terraces high above the Urubamba river in southern Peru. The prominent peak of Huayna Picchu dominates the city's towers, temples, and stepped streets (the Incas had not invented the wheel). Since Spanish conquerors never found the city, it was not destroyed like many other contemporary sites. After centuries lost in the jungle, Machu Picchu was rediscovered in 1911 by the American archaeologist Hiram Bingham.

Pre-Columbian ruins at Copán, Honduras, Central America. Occupied between around 400 and 800, Copán was one of the most important royal sites of the Mayan civilization. The extensive ruins at the site include temples, pyramids, stelae, ball courts, and the carved Hieroglyphic Stairway leading to one of the temples.

Pre-Columbian ruins at Copán, Honduras, Central America. Copán was a major centre of the Mayan civilization, reaching its peak in the 8th century. Much is known about the lives and times of the inhabitants of the site as a result of 500 years of exploration and study, beginning with Spanish explorers in the early 16th century and continuing with extensive excavations today.

The architecture of the Central and South American civilizations that existed prior to the arrival of European colonizers in the 16th century.

Central American architecture Little evidence remains of pre-Mayan buildings, but the distinctive form of the pyramid - the focus of pre-Columbian ceremonial architecture - was in evidence by the 4th century BC, for example, at Cuicuilco, and well developed by AD 100, as in the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán, Mexico. Mesoamerican pyramids were different in form and function to those of the Egyptians. Instead of tombs, they were sites for ritual, usually topped by altars and with steeply sloping, stepped sides and rectangular or circular planforms. The Maya civilization, AD 300-900, left many imposing monuments, significant for their regular, symmetric form, stylized external decoration, and use of corbel arches and internal vaulting. Mayan sites include Chichén Itzá, Mexico, and Tikal, Guatemala. The Totonac, 5th-11th centuries, and Zapotec, 6th-7th centuries, were active during the latter part of the Mayan era and left their own monuments at Tajin and Monte Alban respectively. Arriving from the north in the 10th century, the Toltecs, 10th-12th centuries, took over Chichén Itzá and added many of their own structures, including the nine-tiered pyramid, the Castillo. At Tula, thought to be the Toltec capital, they employed free-standing columns - huge, sculpted figures of warriors and hunters - to support the roof of the temple of the god Quetzalcoatl. The architecture of the Aztecs, 14th-16th centuries, was influenced by Toltec culture but the sculpture that surrounded it had a more fluid and less stylized form. Their capital, Tenochtitlán, was levelled by the Spanish and is now the site of Mexico City, but they left many important buildings such as the double pyramid of Tenayuca, about 1450-1500. There was also a Mixtec civilization that evolved independently of the Aztecs. Few of their buildings remain but the Palace of the Columns at Mitla, AD 1000, is notable for the geometric patterns that cover its interior and exterior walls.

South American architecture Some monuments remain that predate Inca rule, such as the Temple of the Sun at Moche, about 200-600, a pyramidal stepped structure built by the Chavín peoples, and the Gateway of the Sun, Tiahuanaco, about 500-700, a richly carved monolithic structure. Between 1300-1400, a number of local cultures developed including those centred around Chan Chan and Cajamarquilla, towns laid out on a complex grid system composed of streets, pyramids, and reservoirs. The Inca civilization was formed about 1440 and came to dominate the region. Their architecture is best known for its use of huge masonry, laid without cement. The ancient capital of Cuzco, 1200 onwards, has examples of this, as has the spectacularly sited Machu Picchu, about 1500, high in the Andes. This late Inca city follows the typical pattern of the culture: a Sun Temple and palace situated on either side of a central plaza, a water system servicing baths and fountains, and terraced fields for step-cultivation descending the mountainside.