Ancient Designs - Mexico + Peru

"The beautiful designs in this book come from a variety of sources. The Maya and Aztec from ancient Mexico once used them in hieroglyphs and pictograms. They survived as wall paintings, and on excavated pots, figurines and clothes from mummies. The Inca adorned their pottery with geometric decorations or abstract depictions from everyday objects. The much older Nazca were known for their fine textiles and colourful pottery with motifs that appear to depict their pantheon, including a variety of creatures, some hybrid and some fanciful. The Moche on the other hand made beautiful objects from gold, silver, copper and other metals."



bird-man native art
Mexico - Teotihuatecan Knight-Eagle



skeletal figure
Mexico - Maya Death God



Eagle
Mexico - Toltec Eagle



Maya Art & Civilization
Mexico Maya Kukulcán




South American native drawing
Mexico - Quetzalcoatl as Wind God



MesoAmerican calendar glyph legend
Mexico - Aztec Day Signs



claw-handed figure
Peru - Moche Crabman



south american indigenous art
Peru - Moche Boat



stylised warrior bird
Peru - Moche Eagle Warrior



dragon
Peru - Moche Dragon



Mesoamerican glyph
Peru - Mohica God of the Foxes



The images were scanned from 'Native Designs from Ancient Mexico & Peru', 2006 and are posted here with permission.

These images & rendering are © Maarten Hesselt van Dinter / Mundurucu. But the actual designs, being ancient and traditional Maya, Aztec and Inca cultural and mythological pictograms, are in the public domain. Many of these designs can be seen in book and manuscript scans among previous related posts: Mesoamerica.

Also previously: Native North American Designs; Celtic Designs; Indian Designs.