Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 21 of 779 - First - Home
VIEWS OF THE CORDILLERAS, AND MONUMENTS OF THE INDIGENOUS
NATIONS OF THE NEW CONTINENT.* (*Atlas Pittoresque, ou Vues des
Cordilleres, 1 volume folio, with 69 plates, part of which are
coloured, accompanied by explanatory treatises.
This work may be
considered as the Atlas to the historical narrative of the travels.)
This work is intended to represent a few of the grand scenes which
nature presents in the lofty chain of the Andes, and at the same
time to throw some light on the ancient civilization of the
Americans, through the study of their monuments of architecture,
their hieroglyphics, their religious rites, and their astrological
reveries. I have given in this work a description of the teocalli,
or Mexican pyramids, and have compared their structure with that of
the temple of Belus. I have described the arabesques which cover
the ruins of Mitla, the idols in basalt ornamented with the
calantica of the heads of Isis; and also a considerable number of
symbolical paintings, representing the serpent-woman (the Mexican
Eve), the deluge of Coxcox, and the first migrations of the natives
of the Aztec race. I have endeavoured to prove the striking
analogies existing between the calendar of the Toltecs and the
catasterisms of their zodiac, and the division of time of the
people of Tartary and Thibet, as well as the Mexican traditions on
the four regenerations of the globe, the pralayas of the Hindoos,
and the four ages of Hesiod. In this work I have also included (in
addition to the hieroglyphical paintings I brought to Europe),
fragments of all the Aztec manuscripts, collected in Rome, Veletri,
Vienna, and Dresden, and one of which reminds us, by its lineary
symbols, of the kouas of the Chinese.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 21 of 779
Words from 5654 to 5944
of 211363
