An Extraordinary Composite Stela from Teotihuacán

1963 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Aveleyra Arroyo de Anda
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Ball Game ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Teotihuacan Mexico

AbstractIn February, 1963, an unusual discovery was made at La Ventilla, less than a mile from the “Ciudadela” in Teotihuacán, Mexico. This find is a composite or sectional stela made up of four superimposed elements that fit into each other by means of stems and orifices. All elements are different in form and are, from top to bottom, discoidal, globular, conical, and cylindrical, the last fitting into a platform base. This piece is unique in Mesoamerican archaeology and seems to have no significant parallels elsewhere. This stela was carved during the Classic period of Teotihuacán. Its function has been clarified through comparison with mural paintings of the Tlalocan in Tepantitla, Teotihuacán, where a ball-game scene is portrayed, and at each end is a stela that is almost identical with that of La Ventilla. It seems evident that the La Ventilla monument is a ball-court stela-marker.

THE MURAL PAINTINGS OF EL ZAPOTAL, VERACRUZ, MEXICO

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cherra Wyllie
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Form Part ◽  
National Treasures

AbstractDuring the 1970s, excavations at El Zapotal revealed a Late Classic period ossuary with multiple burials, sumptuous funerary offerings, and life-sized terracotta sculpture individually on a par with the Chinese national treasures from Xi'an. Less known are murals adorning a U-shaped banquette centering on the monumental clay sculpture of a skeletal Death God.Wyllie, through the assistance of Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Veracruz, produced drawings of the now deteriorating paintings. The murals form part of a larger narrative program integrating sculpture, architectural elements, burial offerings, and human osteological remains connected with Mesoamerican underworld stories of creation.

EXCAVATION OF AN OBSIDIAN CRAFT WORKSHOP AT TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth G. Hirth ◽  
David M. Carballo ◽  
Mark Dennison ◽  
Sean Carr ◽  
Sarah Imfeld ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Craft Production ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Single Test ◽  
Production Areas ◽  
Teotihuacan Mexico

AbstractThe original research by the Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP) identified a large number of obsidian workshops within Teotihuacan based on surface concentrations of production debris. Clark (1986b) questioned the validity of these identifications and called for subsurface excavation to confirm the presence of in situ workshop locales. This article summarizes the results from the excavation of one of the obsidian workshops identified in the Tlajinga district of Teotihuacan at Compound 17:S3E1 (Compound 17). We describe the excavations, discuss the lithic technology, and examine the subsurface contexts in terms of what they tell us about in situ obsidian craft activity. Excavations confirm that Compound 17 was a locus of large-scale obsidian craft production during the Classic period. While only a single test case, these results suggest that surface remains at Teotihuacan can be a useful guide in identifying craft production areas when they are confirmed through subsurface testing.

Analyses of Archaeological Ceramics From Classic Period Teotihuacan, Mexico, A.D. 150–750

1996 ◽  
Vol 462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles C. Kolb
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Important Research ◽  
Archaeological Ceramics ◽  
The Status ◽  
Religious Control ◽  
Research Problems ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
Teotihuacan Mexico ◽  
Domestic Ceramic

ABSTRACTFrom ca. A.D. 150–750 Classic period civilization in Central Mexico was dominated by the city-state of Teotihuacan, a metropolis of at least 125,000 inhabitants located in a northeastern valley of the Basin of Mexico. This polity exercised economic and religious control over a wide area, regulated obsidian tool resources and production, and locally fabricated and also imported a variety of ceramic artifacts. In this report I shall summarize the status of current and ongoing investigations of Classic Teotihuacan period archaeological ceramics by surveying briefly the regional geology, reviewing previous research employing petrography and INAA, and examining the salient results of the analyses to date on two foreign and seven domestic ceramic wares. Lastly, I consider important research problems and suggest cautions for future investigations of ceramics and clay sources.

Electron Microscopy Studies of the Chronological Sequences of Teotihuacan Plaster Technique

1992 ◽  
Vol 267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Magaloni ◽  
T. Falcon ◽  
J. Cama ◽  
R. W. Siegel ◽  
R. Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscopy ◽  
Optical Microscopy ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Continuous Evolution ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Teotihuacan Mexico ◽  
Scanning Electron

ABSTRACTOver 108 samples of mural paintings from Teotihuacán, México, were studied by scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy and X-ray diffractometry. The results show a sequence in the techniques employed to produce the mural painting's supporting plasters -made of lime and different sands. The technical stages found can be used as archaeological data to help understand the continuous evolution of 800-year mural paintings. The consequences of our study are discussed in detail.

scholarly journals Contexts of offerings and ritual maize in the pictographic record in Central Mexico

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 82-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Mazzetto ◽  
Natalia Moragas Segura
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Early Colonial

The objective of this article is an initial enquiry into the evidence and classification of the offerings of maize in Central Mexico from the Classic period to early colonial times. In order to achieve this goal, we will analyse the presence of maize in Central Mexico according to the evidence found in mural paintings and some pictographic codices. Two Mesoamerican cultures will be considered to achieve our analysis: the Teotihuacan and Mexico-Tenochtitlan.  Maize was instrumental in the performance of daily rituals and in the diet of these ancient Mesoamerican cultures and the cereal also had sacred connotations in pre-Hispanic, colonial and contemporary narratives. We suggest this by reading the iconographic and symbolic representations of corn in the form of seeds and pods, or as an ingredient in cooked foods which are represented in the mural paintings of Teotihuacan as well as some codices of the post-Classic Nahua tradition. These methodological enquiries reveal evidence of a cultural continuity in Central Mexico as a contrasting perspective on the archaeological and ethno-historical period. 

scholarly journals Aj atz'aam, "los de la sal". El uso de la sal en la ciudad maya de Calakmul

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 11-40
Author(s):  
Rogelio Valencia Rivera
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Local Sources ◽  
Maya Area

This paper shows the existence of the transportation and exchange of goods that could not be produced, or were not even present locally, to satisfy a community’s self-consumption, due to an increase in population during the late Classic in the Maya area. Although some studies discuss the exchange of goods in Maya society during the Classic period, they are usually centered on the objects employed by the Maya elites. In this case, I will analyze the role of salt as an indicator of the existence of exchange activities using the evidence available in the mural paintings in the Maya city of Calakmul. The need of the mineral for human consumption, the lack of local sources of the mineral, and the long distance to salt sources, set the stage for exchange travels in order to import it to Calakmul.

Cinnabar, hematite and gypsum presence in mural paintings in Teotihuacan, Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 102375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denisse L. Argote ◽  
Gloria Torres ◽  
Genoveva Hernández-Padrón ◽  
Verónica Ortega ◽  
Pedro A. López-García ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Teotihuacan Mexico

Painting, Writing, and Polity in Teotihuacan, Mexico

1973 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Millon
Keyword(s):  
Wall Painting ◽  
Mural Paintings ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Units ◽  
Teotihuacan Mexico

AbstractTwo hitherto unrelated Teotihuacan mural paintings, no longer in situ, probably are companion pieces from upper and lower walls in the same portico or room or in related porticos or rooms of the same compound. The tassel headdresses worn by the figures in the paintings appear to be insignia of "Rain God"-related social units or institutions, signifying leadership and authority, with military associations. The contexts in which the tassel headdresses occur, both within the ancient city and outside its borders, suggest that persons with rights to the headdress may have been members of or attached to the ruling establishment or the bureaucracy of the Teotihuacan state. The unique two-part notation on the upper wall painting appears to be hierarchically ordered, corresponding to a ranking either of the social units to which the figures belong, or of institutions which they represent, or of places associated with them.

REVISITING THE TEOTIHUACAN CONNECTION AT ALTUN HA

2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine D. White ◽  
Fred J. Longstaffe ◽  
Kimberley R. Law
Keyword(s):  
Oxygen Isotope ◽  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Symbolic Power ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Isotopic Data ◽  
Oxygen Isotope Ratios ◽  
Maya Site ◽  
Early Classic Period ◽  
Teotihuacan Mexico

An analysis of oxygen-isotope ratios in skeletal phosphate was used to assess the possibility that the Early Classic period (a.d. 280–550) Maya elite male in Tomb F/8-1 from the eastern Belizean site of Altun Ha had originally come from Teotihuacan, Mexico. When compared with four other individuals used as controls for spatial and temporal variability in δ18Op values at Altun Ha, this individual falls at the high end of the expected range of local intrasite variation but does not have a δ18Op value consistent with that of Teotihuacan. The mortuary and isotopic data have been compared with those from the previously analyzed Maya site of Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala, in order to examine regional and temporal differences in the influence of the powerful state of Teotihuacan. It appears that Teotihuacan was not the homeland of any of the tomb individuals analyzed from either site. Thus, models of ideological or symbolic power are supported over those of political or military imperialism.

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