Caciques y cacicazgos indigenas en la region de Tollan, siglos XIV-XVII

242 pages with maps, diagrams, charts, tables, bibliography and indices. Quarto (11" x 8 1/4") bound in original publisher's pictorial wrappers. Colección Investigaciones (Colegio de Michoacán) First edition. Tollan is a name used for the capital cities of two empires of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica; first for Teotihuacan, and later for the Toltec capital, Tula, both in Mexico. The name has also been applied to the Postclassic Mexican settlement Cholula. The name Tōllān means "Among the reeds" in the Nahuatl language, with the figurative sense of a densely populated "place where people are thick as reeds". Names with the same meaning were used in Maya and other native Mexican languages. Teotihuacan seems to have been the first city known by this name. After the collapse of the Teotihuacan empire, central Mexico broke into various petty states. The Toltec created the first sizable Mexican empire after the fall of Teotihuacan, and their capital was referred to by the same name as a reference to the earlier greatness of Teotihuacan. In Aztec accounts at the time of the arrival of the Conquistadores, Teotihuacan and the Toltec capital sometimes seem to be confused and conflated. The epithet "Tollan" was also sometimes applied to any great metropolis or capital. Cholula, for example, was sometimes called "Tollan Cholula", and the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán was likewise given the title "Tollan". The Mixtec translation of this, Ñuu Co'yo is still the Mixtec name for Mexico City to this day. Tula is a Mesoamerican archeological site, which was an important regional center which reached its height as the capital of the Toltec Empire between the fall of Teotihuacan and the rise of Tenochtitlan. It has not been well studied in comparison to these other two sites, and disputes remain as to its political system, area of influence and its relations with contemporary Mesoamerican cities, especially with Chichen Itza. The site is located in the city of Tula de Allende in the Tula Valley, in what is now the southwest of the Mexican state of Hidalgo, northwest of Mexico City. The archeological site consists of a museum, remains of an earlier settlement called Tula Chico as well as the main ceremonial site called Tula Grande. The main attraction is the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl which is topped by four, four metre high basalt columns carved in the shape of Toltec warriors. Tula fell around 1150, but it had significant influence in the following Aztec Empire, with its history written about heavily in myth. The feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl is linked to this city, whose worship was widespread from central Mexico to Central America at the time the Spanish arrived. Condition: A near fine copy.