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."

Mexico - Teotihuatecan Knight-Eagle

Mexico - Maya Death God

Mexico - Toltec Eagle

Mexico Maya Kukulcán

Mexico - Quetzalcoatl as Wind God

Mexico - Aztec Day Signs

Peru - Moche Crabman

Peru - Moche Boat

Peru - Moche Eagle Warrior

Peru - Moche Dragon

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.