Cantona (Mexico)
Cantona is a large and important, but little-known pre-Columbian city (today an archaeological excavation site) in the eastern part of the valley of Puebla , Mexico , 93 km as the crow flies northeast of the state capital of the same name . The city lies on the lava field of a neighboring extinct volcano and was created and flourished in the Mesoamerican period of the Late Classical period . Cantona is remarkable for its extensive town planning and the large number of ball courts .
For the urban settlement of Cantona an area of almost 12 km² is given. It was a fortified settlement that differed from most other Mesoamerican cities in its urban planning and construction. There was no symmetry in the facility, presumably due to the uneven terrain of the lava flow. The very dense population of up to 100,000 inhabitants lived in up to 8,000 residential units, which were separated from each other by high walls made of broken lava rock in the form of dry stone walls. The inner-city connection was ensured by a wide and complex network of mostly narrow streets, with differences in terrain being balanced out by individual or entire sequences of steps.
24 ball courts were identified in Cantona, 12 of which were designed as an architectural group with a pyramid at one end and one or two enclosed courtyards. The stone mosaic ball game markers are unique. The monumental architecture had a top layer of well-worked volcanic rock.
The life of the city ranged from 150 to around 1000 AD. The first major expansion phase lasted until around the year 600. At that time, the residential units were not yet finished with walls and the construction quality is noticeably better than later. After about 650, the city's internal road network and roads to smaller outlying settlements were built. Older ceremonial and representative buildings were mostly no longer used, instead new ones were built, only most of the ball playgrounds remained in use.
The economy of Cantona was based on agricultural production in the valley areas to the east and west, and the trade in obsidian extended to the wider area. The reasons for the rapid decline of Cantona are still unknown, indications such as the construction of numerous watchtowers in the settlement speak for a time of increased uncertainty.
literature
- Angel García Cook: Cantona. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico 1994, ISBN 968-6927-46-8 .
- Angel García Cook: Cantona. In: Davíd Carrasco (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America. Volume 1: Acat - Gulf. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2001, ISBN 0-19-514255-1 , pp. 141-143.
See also
Coordinates: 19 ° 14 ′ 39.2 ″ N , 98 ° 20 ′ 22.9 ″ W.