Mesoamerican Art Archives - Art History With Alder

In the year 1978, electrical workers in Mexico City discovered a stone carving while digging underground – the Coyolxauhqui Stone. This led to the discovery of the entire Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan, which includes their main structure of Templo Mayor. All underneath today’s Mexico City. Crazy!

Picutre of the Tenochtitlan excavation — Excavation of Tenochtitlan’s Templo Mayor, photo: Mike Peel (CC-BY-SA-4.0)

In this article, I’ll dive into who the Aztec people of Tenochtitlan were. Then, I’ll cover the story and analysis of the Coyolxauhqui Stone . You can also watch my full YouTube video analysis of this artwork here.

The Aztec People

The Aztecs (1345 – 1520) were the main empire in Mesoamerica after the Mayans. Unfortunately, they were wiped out by the Spaniards due to disease, murder, and plundering.

Origin story of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

Image of the Mexican flag, depicting the Tenochtitlan origin story — Mexican Flag

Tenochtitlan was the Aztec’s capital city, and its origin story might sound familiar. This story is so seeped into Mexico history that it’s found on their flag. The story of Tenochtitlan goes like this…

The patron god of Mexico, or the Aztecs, was Huitzilopochtli. He had a vision that he needed to walk until he saw an eagle land on a cactus while grasping a snake in its claws. Once he saw this, he needed to build his main city in that location.

So, he and his followers walked and walked until they found this sign. Unfortunately, it was on a swampy island in the middle of lake Texcoco. And so they built their main city, Tenochtitlan, on a swampy island.

Tenochtitlan’s Templo Mayor

In Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs built their main structure called Templo Mayor. When Templo Mayor was excavated following the discovery of the Coyolxauhqui Stone, seven distinct layers to the structures were noticed. These layers have been assigned to each ruler who reigned in Tenochtitlan. Each ruler seemed to build on top of the previous ruler’s portion of the temple to show their power and their connection to the gods.

Templo Mayor is made up of two connected structures. First, the structure on the left with some blue color is dedicated to the deity Tlaloc – the god of water, rain, agriculture, fertility, and that kind of stuff. It is believed that this temple was made to represent a mountain called the Mountain of Sustenance, which is a mountain that provides rain and water to help crops grow.

Second, the structure on the right with some red color is dedicated to the deity Huitzilopochtli, who is the aforementioned patron deity of the Mexica (a term the Aztecs used to refer to themselves). Huitzilopochtli is the god of warfare, blood, power, fire, sun and all of those things. This structure is meant to represent Mount Coatepec, and at the base is where the the Coyolxauhqui Stone was found. This is where it gets interesting…

The Coyolxauhqui Stone

The story

Remember, the discovery of the Coyolxauhqui Stone is what led to the finding of Templo Mayor and Tenochtitla. Therefore, this is an important stone! Even more cool is the story that the stone carving contains.

Coyolxauhqui means “bells her face”, which is why she has bells on her face when depicted in art. Her mom’s name, Coatlicue, means “snakes her skirt”. Which is why she has a snake skirt when depicted in art.

One day, Coatlicue gets impregnated by a feather that enters up her skirt, and Coyolxauhqui thinks this is very dishonorable. She gets pretty mad at her mom for getting impregnated this way, and so she gathers up her 400 brothers and they decide they’re going to attack mom.

Image of the story of the Coyolxauhqui Stone — Huitzilopochtli defeating Coyolxauhqui

They find Coatlicue on top of Mount Coatepec (remember, right-side structure of Templo Mayor), which is snake mountain. When they confront their mom and are about to attack, the baby rips out of Coatlicue’s womb as a fully grown, clothed child. This child ends up being Huitzilopochtli (remember, the god of the right-side structure of Templo Mayor). Then, Huitzilopochtli defends his mom Coatlicue by cutting off Coyolxauhqui’s head and rolling her body down the mountain. Her body becomes dismembered as arms and legs get torn off while tumbling down the mountain.

The Coyolxauhqui Stone and Templo Mayor

As mentioned above, the Coyolxauhqui Stone was found at the base of Huitzilopochtli’s temple of Templo Mayor. The stone depicts Coyolxauhqui with dismembered limbs.

With that in mind, it is understood that the Aztecs performed human sacrifice at the top of this temple (symbolizing Mount Coatapec). After taking out the beating heart, sacrificed bodies would be rolled down the steps (sound familiar?) to where they would come to rest on the Coyolxauhqui Stone itself. Amazing.

Coyolxauhqui Stone Analysis

The Coyolxauhqui Stone is massive at 11 feet in diameter. Done in the low relief style, it would have been brightly painted. Notice the “bells on her face”, which is what her name means, and the feathers in her hair.

Image of the original coloring of the Coyolxauhqui Stone — Supposed original coloring, based on chemical tracing (source, CC-BY-SA-4.0 )

She is also decorated with earrings, sandals, bracelets, and a serpent belt with a skull. The serpent belt is thought to symbolize snake mountain, or Mount Coatepec. While the skull on the belt is thought to symbolize sacrifice and death. The earrings, bracelets, and sandals are signs of wealth.

In this carving, Coyolxauhqui’s head is detached from her torso. Notice how her limbs are pinwheel-shaped around her body and have bones sticking out of them. Coyolxauhqui is also naked, perhaps indicating humiliation and defeat. Her sagging breasts and stretched belly could be indicative of motherhood.

When put into context of the Aztec people, this incredible artwork comes to life. The Coyolxauhqui Stone is amazing art. It has an incredible story behind it. Above all, it’s purpose was sacred and fascinating.

Yaxchilan is a Mayan civilization located on the southern banks of the Usumicenta River in Chiapas Mexico. This place is so remote, you still need to take a boat to get to it. The center building of Yaxchilan is called Structure 23 and is famous for two stone carvings called lintel 24 and lintel 25. These two carvings contain two figures, Shield Jaguar and Lady Xook that you’ll learn about in this article.

(You can also view my YouTube video Yaxchilan’s Shield Jaguar and Lady Xook Lintel 24 and 25)

Photo of Yaxchilan structure 23 — Structure 23 of Yaxchilan (Photo: Joaquín Bravo Contreras, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Yaxchilan Lintel 24

Photo of Lintel 24 Yaxchilan — Yaxchilan’s Lintel 24 (Source, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Bloodletting

In Structure 23 on the left entryway above the door frame on the lintel, looking up at the ceiling, is a beautiful carving titled lintel 24. Depicted here is Shield Jaguar and his wife Lady Xook participating in a very sacred ceremony known as bloodletting. Bloodletting was a really sacred ritual to the Mayans that allowed them to communicate with the gods and their spirits.

Depicted in this scene you can see a long rope with sharp barbs or thorns off to the side. Lady Xook drags the rope through a hole in her tongue. Little droplets of blood flow from her mouth and create rivulets on her cheeks. Finally, the blood is caught in a bowl located near her knees. (Side note, men used to do this on their genitals – ouch!)

Shield Jaguar and Lady Xook

Watching over Lady Xook is her husband Shield Jaguar holding a lit torch. This may suggest that this ceremony was done either at night, in a dark windowless room, or some other sacred space.

If you zoom in on Lady Xook’s costume, you can see the individual threads woven together to create this piece of cloth. You can see that so much care was put into this piece to honor this incredible woman.

She’s also shown in an idolized state, which means she’s perfect, she is the ideal beauty, the height of perfection to Mayans at the time. The height of beauty was to have a long sloping forehead that connected to your nose in this nice vertical line, sloping foreheads, large noses, almond shaped eyes, and being adorned with jewelry made of gold and jade. This is Lady Xook in all of her perfected glory.

Her husband is similarly attired and depicted. You can see that idealized beauty in his face and his structure, but you can also see how much he’s adorned in gold and jade jewelry as well. Look at his headdress – it’s immaculate, it shows power both military and political. And if you zoom in a little closer on that headdress you can see an actual head. Yup, that’s a shrunken head. Definitely there to invoke fear in enemies, but also to promote power of the Mayan ruler. (Side note, to make a shrunken head you remove the skull from the neck and then you just let the skin dehydrate for a couple of days.)

The glyphs and Mayan calendar

Off to the left and upper side of the panel you can see some glyphs. Now these glyphs weren’t translated until the 1960s, which is incredible because Yaxchilan was discovered in the 1800s, so we waited a long time to figure out what was actually being said here. But we found out that they’re very descriptive.

These picture-like squares tell us a couple of things. Mostly they tell us dates, and they tell us names of people involved in the scene, which is how we know this is Shield Jaguar and his consort wife Lady Xook, and it’s also how we know that the date of this panel was October 24th 709 CE.

The Mayans are known for their really complex calendar system. If you were around in the year 2012, you can remember that we thought the world was going to end because this calendar system ended. This really complex calendar system gives us some really specific dates. Which helps us understand when important events happened. The next lintel is a great example of this.

Yaxchilan Lintel 25

Yaxchilan’s Lintel 25 (Source, CC BY 2.0)

Lintel 25 of Yaxchilan is located in the central entrance to that same building where lintel 24 is found, structure 23. But here we have a little bit different scene being depicted. We still have our two main characters Lady Xook and Shield Jaguar. The date off to the side on this one though is in the year 681 in the month of October, which is the date and year that Shield Jaguar ascended to the throne so this is an important event that’s being depicted here.

You still see our famous Lady Xook kneeling in the same position, but this time in her hands she holds that bowl with those maybe pieces of paper or an open codex or book. You can see actual droplets of her blood on there signifying this is after the bloodletting scene.

Next, look at her face. As you look at her face you kind of get this sense that she’s in this trance-like moment. She’s hallucinating. Now after the bloodletting ritual, there would have been a lot of blood loss, and there would have been a lot of incense burning, so hallucinations were not uncommon during bloodletting scenes. Her eyes roll back to her head as her head tilts upward toward this image.

Who is coming out of the serpent in lintel 25?

Now what she’s looking at here is a man emerging from the mouth of a serpent. You can see his body as it kind of curves down the side of the lintel, but there’s this person coming out. We’re not quite sure who this person is, but through the adornment and that incredible headdress we can almost exactly assume that this is someone of high importance.

There’s three hypotheses as to who this person could be the. The first hypothesis is that it could be a spirit or a god of the Mayan culture, that makes sense. The second person it could be is Shield Jaguar coming out of the mouth of the snake, which makes sense because you know this is his party. The third hypothesis is that it’s Lady Xook herself, and she’s kind of having this double out of body experience.

I love the idea that this could be Lady Xook in some sort of mirror trance. This would show her power, royalty, and spiritual side. I love that idea. But the hypothesis that I think makes the most sense to me at least is that of Shield Jaguar. Like I said, this is his party. This is his year, and there’s a lot of connection throughout the globe of ruling kings and their connections to becoming gods. It just makes more sense.

The Human Connection

Lintel 24 and 25 of Yaxchilan would have been brightly painted in their full glory. You can see remnants of blue and red paint that really would have popped with the design. I love these pieces because of the stories they tell. You can see that the Mayans really tried to show their connections to each other, their king, and spiritual realm. This connection is what drives a lot of art throughout history and across the globe. And they are the same connections we are trying to make sense of today.

Category: Mesoamerican Art

Significance of the Coyolxauhqui Stone Carving from Templo Mayor