Southeastern Ceremonial Complex

Examples of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex in the following topics:

• Beadwork and Ceramics in the Eastern Woodland Cultures

  • The Mississippian culture flourished from approximately 800-1500 CE in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States.
  • Pottery is one of the hallmark arts of this culture, which includes the Cahokia, Natchez, Caddo, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, Wichita, and many other southeastern peoples.
  • Many artisans from this area were involved with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, a pan-regional and pan-linguistic religious and trade network.
  • The majority of the information known about the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is derived from the elaborate artworks its participants left behind, including pottery, shell gorgets and cups, stone statuaries, and copper plates.
  • Clay, stone, and pearl beads were fashioned and worn by the people of the Southeastern Woodlands, often decorated with bold imagery.

• Woodlands in the East

  • They carved stone tablets with zoomorphic designs, created pottery, and fashioned costumes from animal hides and antlers for ceremonial rituals.
  • They built larger and more complex platform mounds than those of their predecessors, and finished and developed more advanced ceramic techniques, commonly using ground mussel shell as a tempering agent.
  • Many were involved with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), a pan-regional and pan-linguistic religious and trade network.
  • Artisans produced religious items, such as long-nosed god maskettes, ceremonial earrings with a symbolic shape, thought to have been used in fictive kinship rituals.
  • Other tribes descended from Mississippian cultures include the Caddo, Choctaw, Muskogee Creek, Wichita, and many other southeastern peoples.

• Stonework on Easter Island

  • Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, located at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle.
  • The ahu were usually adjacent to the marae, or main central court where ceremonies took place.
  • The houses at the ceremonial village of Orongo are unique in that they are shaped like hare paenga but are made entirely of flat basalt slabs found inside Rano Kao crater.
  • Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle.

• Architecture in Early South America

  • Chavín de Huántar and Tiwanaku were important ceremonial centers in pre-Inca South America.
  • The transformation of the center into a valley-dominating monument had a complex effect.
  • Large ceremonial sites were abandoned, some unfinished, and were replaced by villages and agricultural land.
  • The site continued as a ceremonial center until around 500 BCE.
  • The Kalasasaya temple at Tiwanaku was used as a ceremonial center.

• Minoan Architecture

  • Minoan palace centers had a central ceremonial courtyard, and were divided into numerous zones for civic, storage, and production purposes.
  • The complex at Knossos  provided an example of monumental architecture built by the Minoans.
  • A palatial complex, dating from the Middle Bronze Age, was destroyed by an earthquake during the Late Bronze Age.
  • The older looks like the Palace at Knossos, although the Phaistos complex is smaller.
  • Like the complex at Knossos, the complex at Phaistos is arranged around a central courtyard and held grand staircases that led to areas believed to be a theatre, ceremonial spaces, and official apartments.

• Sculpture of the Igbo-Ukwu

  • Igbo-Ukwu, a town of the Igbo people in southeastern Nigeria, is notable for three archaeological sites where excavations have found bronze artifacts from a highly sophisticated metal-working culture dating perhaps to the ninth or tenth century.

• The Rite of Passage

  • The rite of passage, still practiced by some Africans today, is a traditional ceremony in which a person enters into a new phase of life.
  • The rite of passage is typically a ceremonial event in which a person enters into a new phase of life, such as puberty or marriage.
  • While many rituals and ceremonies are still practiced today, many Africans - especially those in more urban areas - no longer practice them.
  • It is also used to transmit complex messages about identity, such as social, political, and religious roles .
  • However the issue is complex, and some Africans argue that international interference with the custom infringes upon cultural tradition and women's decisions about their own rituals.

• Architecture and Urban Planning under the Ming Dynasty

  • Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 180 acres.
  • The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere.
  • Later, during the mid-Qing Dynasty, the Emperor's residence was moved to the western side of the complex.
  • Its axis extends to the south through Tiananmen gate to Tiananmen Square, the ceremonial center of the People's Republic of China, and on to Yongdingmen.
  • For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.

• The Todaiji

  • The Tōdaiji is the most ambitious Buddhist temple complex of the Nara period in Japan.
  • These facets included a system for converting ideas and sounds into writing; historiography; complex theories of government, such as an effective bureaucracy; and, most important for the arts, new technologies, new building techniques, more advanced methods of casting in bronze, and new techniques and media for painting.
  • Constructed as the headquarters for a network of temples in each of the provinces, the Tōdaiji is the most ambitious religious complex erected in the early centuries of Buddhist worship in Japan.
  • This last structure is of great importance as an art-historical cache, because in it are stored the utensils that were used in the temple's dedication ceremony in 752 and the eye-opening ritual for the Rushana image, as well as government documents and many secular objects owned by the Imperial family.
  • The Tōdaiji (dating back to 728) is the most ambitious religious complex erected in the early centuries of Buddhist worship in Japan.

• Death

  • Dama memorial ceremonies, consisting of the performance of up to 400 masqueraders, are held to accompany the dead into the ancestral realm and restore order to the universe.