CDHM The Miniature Way
May 2011, Issue 16
Dollhouse Tourism, Mexico
Page 77

would be fought according to solar-calendars and a complex theology using astronomical metaphors would organize the daily lives of millions of people.

At different points in time, three Mexican cities - Teotihuacan, Tenochtitlan, and Cholula - were among the largest cities in the world. These cities and several others blossomed as centers of commerce, ideas, ceremonies and theology. In turn, their influence spread outward into neighboring cultures in central Mexico.

Among the crafts of Mexico, colorful pottery stands out, from figurines to functional and artistic ware. Earthenware, squash shapes crudely fired in fire pits, first began to replace stone utensils around 2300-1500 BCE. These early pots evolved into pieces made from clay with a thin layer of slip as glaze. Slip is a surface treatment made from watered down clay and brushed onto a pot before the first firing. These prehistoric pieces were either pinched, coiled or molded with the exception of the Zapotec's proto wheel. The potter's wheel more familiar to modern civilization was unknown prior to the Spanish Conquest.