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 800-1000 CE). The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tōllān (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization, indeed in the Nahuatl language the word "Tōltēcatl" (singular) or "Tōltēcah" (plural) came to take on the meaning "artisan".