Indigenous Americas: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
35 flashcard terms for AP Art History Unit 5, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 20-question quiz — free, no account needed.
CED Unit 5: arts of Mesoamerica, the Andes, and North America before and around European contact — power, cosmology, and materials charged with meaning.
Chavín de Huántar
Peru, c. 900–200 BCE. Andean ceremonial center whose sunken plazas, galleries, and Lanzón stele hosted oracular ritual; its style spread widely.
Lanzón Stele
The blade-shaped granite deity carved inside Chavín's Old Temple, with fanged snarl and clawed hands — visible only to select ritual participants.
Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings
Colorado, c. 450–1300 CE. Ancestral Puebloan sandstone villages built into canyon alcoves, with kivas for ceremony; abandoned after prolonged drought.
Kiva
A circular, usually subterranean Ancestral Puebloan ceremonial chamber entered from the roof, symbolizing emergence from the earth.
Yaxchilán
Mexico, c. 725 CE. Maya city on the Usumacinta whose carved lintels (24, 25, 26) record royal bloodletting and vision rituals of Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc.
Lintel 25
Yaxchilán, c. 725 CE. Lady Xoc, after tongue bloodletting, beholds a vision serpent disgorging an ancestor-warrior — royal legitimacy through sacrifice.
Bloodletting
Maya royal auto-sacrifice (tongue, other piercings) that opened communication with gods and ancestors, obligating rulers to feed the cosmos.
Great Serpent Mound
Ohio, c. 1070 CE. A 400-meter effigy earthwork of an uncoiling snake, perhaps aligned with solstices or the appearance of Halley's Comet.
Templo Mayor
Tenochtitlan, 1375–1520. The Aztec twin-pyramid heart of the empire: shrines to Huitzilopochtli (war/sun) and Tlaloc (rain) atop nested rebuildings.
Coyolxauhqui Stone
c. 1469. Monolithic disk of the dismembered moon goddess at the Templo Mayor's base — sacrificial victims fell past her as reenacted myth.
Calendar Stone (Sun Stone)
c. 1500. Basalt disk centered on a solar deity within signs of the five cosmic eras — Aztec time, sacrifice, and imperial ideology in stone.
Olmec-style Mask (Aztec offering)
Jadeite mask carved c. 1200–400 BCE but buried in the Templo Mayor — the Aztecs collected ancient objects to claim deep ancestral legitimacy.
Ruler's Feather Headdress
Aztec, c. 1428–1520. Quetzal and cotinga feathers with gold; associated with Motecuhzoma II — featherwork was among the empire's most precious arts.
City of Cusco
Inka capital, c. 1440 onward, planned (by tradition) in the shape of a puma; hub of the four quarters of Tawantinsuyu and of the ceque sight-lines.
Qorikancha
Cusco's 'Golden Enclosure' sun temple, once sheathed in gold; the Spanish built the church of Santo Domingo directly on its fine masonry.
Inka Ashlar Masonry
Mortarless walls of granite blocks ground to hairline joints, earthquake-resistant; the finest reserved for sacred and royal buildings.
Saqsa Waman
Zigzag megalithic terrace walls above Cusco, with stones up to about 8 meters — Inka state labor-tax (mit'a) construction at fortress scale.
c. 1450–1540. Royal estate of Pachacuti astride a ridge; terraces, the Intihuatana stone, and windows framing sacred peaks tie architecture to landscape.
Intihuatana
The carved 'hitching post of the sun' at Machu Picchu, a ritual stone whose planes align with solar events and surrounding holy mountains.
All-T'oqapu Tunic
Inka, 1450–1540. Royal camelid-fiber tunic covered in t'oqapu squares — abstract motifs signaling the wearer's authority over all peoples and regions.
T'oqapu
Small geometric emblems woven into Inka textiles; a full field of them was an imperial prerogative, textiles outranking gold in Andean value.
Quipu
Knotted-cord Inka recording device tracking census and tribute by knot type, position, and cord color — administration without writing.
Bandolier Bag
Lenape (Delaware), c. 1850. Shoulder bag densely beaded in imported glass beads — European trade materials absorbed into Indigenous prestige regalia.
Transformation Mask
Kwakwaka'wakw, late 19th c. Northwest Coast cedar mask that opens mid-dance from raven to human face, enacting transformation at potlatches.
Potlatch
Northwest Coast ceremonial feast where hosts validate rank by distributing wealth; masks and regalia perform inherited privileges.
Formline Style
Northwest Coast design system of swelling black outlines, ovoids, and U-forms composing animals across bilateral surfaces.
Hide Painting (Battle Scene)
Eastern Shoshone painted elk hide, c. 1890–1900, attributed to Cotsiogo — Sun Dance and hunt scenes adapted as older lifeways were suppressed.
Cotsiogo (Cadzi Cody)
Shoshone hide painter who blended traditional pictorial conventions with imagery appealing to non-Native buyers during the reservation era.
Maize Cobs (Inka metalwork)
c. 1440–1533. Sheet silver-copper alloy corn ears, likely from a ritual garden of precious-metal plants at the Qorikancha — agriculture divinized.
Ancestral Puebloans
Southwestern farming culture (formerly 'Anasazi') behind Chaco and Mesa Verde; descendants include modern Pueblo peoples.
Vision Serpent
Maya conduit between worlds: from its jaws emerge ancestors or gods summoned by royal bloodletting, as on Yaxchilán's lintels.
Corbel Vault
Maya roofing method of stones stepped inward to a capstone — creating the narrow lofty interiors of structures like Yaxchilán's temples.
Effigy Mound
Earthwork shaped as an animal, like the Great Serpent Mound; built by successive Eastern Woodlands cultures for ritual, not burial in the Serpent's case.
Camelid Fiber
Alpaca and llama wool, the prized medium of Andean textiles; fine cloth (cumbi) was woven by specialists and gifted as state treasure.