The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology (ca 900-1168 CE). The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tōllān [ˈtoːlːaːn] (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization; indeed in the Nahuatl language the word "Tōltēcatl" [toːlˈteːkat͡ɬ] (singular) or "Tōltēcah" [toːlˈteːkaʔ] (plural) came to take on the meaning "artisan". The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of the Toltec Empire, giving lists of rulers and their exploits