Pre-Columbian Art
The term refers to any kind of art (architecture, sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, weaving, etc.) of the successive civilizations of Central America until the time of the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th century (which led to the destruction of these cultures). The archaeological rediscovery of this art began in the 19th century. At the time of the Conquest, the most important civilizations of the American continent were the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico, the Maya in Yucatan Peninsula, and the Inca, throughout from the highlands of the Andes to the coast of modern Peru. Of these, the cultures of the Aztecs and Inca were more recent than those of Maya. The advanced knowledge of astronomy, their invention of a method for recording of the dates and names of gods and their remarkable stone temples, which were built on the top of high pyramids, were some of the main characteristics of the Mayan civilization. In terms of the art of these cultures, its remarkable samples may be considered the enormous pyramid temples of Teotihuacan in central Mexico, the numerous, stone statues and the similar stone columns, a number of gold jewelry (mainly from the Andean region and today's Colombia), a wide variety of vessels (of which the best known are those of the Mochica and Nazca in today's Peru) as well as some of the finest textiles in the world.