Toltec

The Toltecs were the people of Tula, called Tollan in Nahuatl, a city in the highlands of central Mexico whose culture dominated central Mesoamerica from roughly 950 to 1150. They emerged after the fall of Teotihuacan, combining farming migrants from the Gulf Coast with settled Chichimeca groups from the northern deserts.

At its height Tula was laid out around plazas with pyramids, ball courts, columned halls and giant warrior figures known as Atlanteans. Their influence reached Yucatan, where the Maya city of Chichen Itza adopted much of their architecture and symbolism, though the direction of influence is debated.

In the twelfth century Tula was sacked and abandoned amid internal conflict and pressure from nomadic newcomers, and its people scattered among the cities of central Mexico. In Nahuatl the word for Toltec came to mean a master artisan.