MEXICO – Mexico City - National Museum of Anthropology - Chacmool
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CHACMOOL
A chacmool (also spelled chac-mool) is a form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its head facing 90 degrees from the front, supporting itself on its elbows and supporting a bowl or a disk upon its stomach.
These figures possibly symbolised slain warriors carrying offerings to the gods. The bowl upon the chest was used to hold sacrificial offerings, including pulque, tamales, tortillas, tobacco, turkeys, feathers and incense.
In an Aztec example, the receptacle is a cuauhxicalli (a stone bowl to receive sacrificed human hearts).
Chacmools were often associated with sacrificial stones or thrones.
Aztec chacmools bore water imagery and were associated with Tlaloc, the rain god. Their symbolism placed them on the frontier between the physical and supernatural realms, as intermediaries with the gods.
The chacmool form of sculpture first appeared around the 9th century AD in the Valley of Mexico and the northern Yucatán Peninsula.
FORM
There is great variation among individual chacmools, with some possessing heads that are right-facing and others left-facing, and some with the heads facing upwards. Others, a few examples, have movable heads.
The figure may be lying on its back or on its side and the abdomen can be sunken below the level of the chest and knees or at the same level. Some chacmools were raised upon rectangular bases. Some of the figures are richly attired whilst others are almost naked.
The chacmools of Chichen Itza and Tula depict young men with warrior attributes, while the chacmools of Michoacán depict elderly men with wrinkled faces and erect penises.
A chacmool from Guácimo, Costa Rica, combines human and jaguar features and grips a bowl. The face of the figure looks upwards and the bowl was apparently used to grind foodstuffs.
A wide variety of materials were used to sculpt chacmools, including limestone and hard metamorphic and igneous rock types. Other materials employed include ceramic and cement.
DISCOVERY AND NAMING
The ancient name for these type of sculptures is unknown.
The term chacmool is derived from the name “Chaacmol,” which Augustus Le Plongeon in 1875 gave to a sculpture that he and his wife Alice Dixon Le Plongeon excavated within the Temple of the Eagles and Jaguars at Chichén Itzá in 1875.
He translated Chaacmol from Yucatecan Mayan as the “paw swift like thunder.”
Le Plongeon believed the statue, which he had found buried beneath the Platform of the Eagles and the Jaguars, depicted a former ruler of Chichen Itza.
Le Plongeon's sponsor, Stephen Salisbury of Worcester, Massachusetts, published Le Plongeon's find, but revised the spelling to "Chac-Mool."
Le Plongeon sought permission from Mexico's president to display the statue at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, a request that was denied. In 1877 the Yucatecan government seized the statue and brought it to Mérida. Weeks later Yucatán turned over the statue to the federal government, which brought it to Mexico City to the National Museum of Anthropology (this photo).
Museum worker Jesús Sanchez realised that the Chichen Itza sculpture was stylistically similar to two sculptures from central Mexico and the wide occurrence of the form within Mesoamerica was first recognised.
The 19th century discovery of chacmools in both central Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula helped to promote the idea of a Toltec empire although the chacmool sculptures may have originated in the Maya region.
Although the name chacmool was inappropriately applied, it has become a useful label to link stylistically similar sculptures from different regions and periods without imposing a unified interpretation.
Besides these sites, the sculpture was also found in Michoacán, where it is called Uaxanoti (The Seated One) in the Purépecha language.
AZTEC CHACMOOL
During the 1930 excavation of Templo Mayor, the only fully polychrome chacmool to be found at that site was in its original context on the top level of the Tlaloc side (the side dedicated to the rain god) of the temple.
Because this chacmool statue sat in the same position as the sacrificial stone on the Huitzilopochtli side of the temple, "historical interpretations" are confirmed in the idea that this sculpture acted as a divine messenger, a link between the temple priest(s) and the god (in this case the rain god Tlaloc).
The pigment that remained upon this chacmool sculpture was crucial for the iconographic identification of the figure, as it does not contain any iconography or symbols associated with the rain god Tlaloc (the god with which this sculpture is associated at the Templo Mayor).
Upon this Aztec sculptures discovery, a color reconstruction was created as a result of the work involving a series of steps : the production of a line drawing of the statue, a diligent cleaning of the colored surfaces of the statue, and the establishment of spatial recognition by means of the use of "stereoscopic magnifying glasses and ultraviolet light".
Scholars determined that the Aztec chacmool discovered at the Templo Mayor did in fact contain representations of the rain god (Tlaloc) by recognizing similarities between "the circular gold pectoral medallion, the color combination on the petticoat, the black skin, the red hands and feet, and the white headdress and bangles," all of which suggest similar stylistic and iconographic progression among earlier and later Mexica chacmool sculptures.
A second chacmool discovery from the Templo Mayor and dating to a later period displays iconographic features which are distinct from the larger corpus of other figures but consistent with other sculptures found in the same context at the Templo Mayor.
The other representations baring the distinct iconography include Tlaloc ritual vessels and bench reliefs. One of the distinct iconographic features is the representation of the eyes. Whereas Tlaloc's eyes are generally represented with a round goggle-like frame, the later chacmool, the vessels, and the bench relief feature a rectangular eye frame within which almond eyes are engraved.
All three sculptures also include large fangs at the corners of the god's mouth.
The ornaments worn by the later chacmool and depicted in the vessels and the bench relief of the Templo Mayor are also distinct rather than the characteristic earspools with a square plug and central dangal. These examples sport oversized circular spools.
All three examples are also adorned with a multistrand, beaded collar in which one strand has larger beads that have been interpreted as hanging bells.
The chacmool holds onto a cuauhxicalli vessel that also is engraved with the face of the god with the same rectangular eye and mouth features.
THIS PHOTO shows a Maya chacmool from Chichen Itza displayed at the National Museum of Anthropology
A chacmool (also spelled chac-mool) is a form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its head facing 90 degrees from the front, supporting itself on its elbows and supporting a bowl or a disk upon its stomach.
These figures possibly symbolised slain warriors carrying offerings to the gods. The bowl upon the chest was used to hold sacrificial offerings, including pulque, tamales, tortillas, tobacco, turkeys, feathers and incense.
In an Aztec example, the receptacle is a cuauhxicalli (a stone bowl to receive sacrificed human hearts).
Chacmools were often associated with sacrificial stones or thrones.
Aztec chacmools bore water imagery and were associated with Tlaloc, the rain god. Their symbolism placed them on the frontier between the physical and supernatural realms, as intermediaries with the gods.
The chacmool form of sculpture first appeared around the 9th century AD in the Valley of Mexico and the northern Yucatán Peninsula.
FORM
There is great variation among individual chacmools, with some possessing heads that are right-facing and others left-facing, and some with the heads facing upwards. Others, a few examples, have movable heads.
The figure may be lying on its back or on its side and the abdomen can be sunken below the level of the chest and knees or at the same level. Some chacmools were raised upon rectangular bases. Some of the figures are richly attired whilst others are almost naked.
The chacmools of Chichen Itza and Tula depict young men with warrior attributes, while the chacmools of Michoacán depict elderly men with wrinkled faces and erect penises.
A chacmool from Guácimo, Costa Rica, combines human and jaguar features and grips a bowl. The face of the figure looks upwards and the bowl was apparently used to grind foodstuffs.
A wide variety of materials were used to sculpt chacmools, including limestone and hard metamorphic and igneous rock types. Other materials employed include ceramic and cement.
DISCOVERY AND NAMING
The ancient name for these type of sculptures is unknown.
The term chacmool is derived from the name “Chaacmol,” which Augustus Le Plongeon in 1875 gave to a sculpture that he and his wife Alice Dixon Le Plongeon excavated within the Temple of the Eagles and Jaguars at Chichén Itzá in 1875.
He translated Chaacmol from Yucatecan Mayan as the “paw swift like thunder.”
Le Plongeon believed the statue, which he had found buried beneath the Platform of the Eagles and the Jaguars, depicted a former ruler of Chichen Itza.
Le Plongeon's sponsor, Stephen Salisbury of Worcester, Massachusetts, published Le Plongeon's find, but revised the spelling to "Chac-Mool."
Le Plongeon sought permission from Mexico's president to display the statue at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, a request that was denied. In 1877 the Yucatecan government seized the statue and brought it to Mérida. Weeks later Yucatán turned over the statue to the federal government, which brought it to Mexico City to the National Museum of Anthropology (this photo).
Museum worker Jesús Sanchez realised that the Chichen Itza sculpture was stylistically similar to two sculptures from central Mexico and the wide occurrence of the form within Mesoamerica was first recognised.
The 19th century discovery of chacmools in both central Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula helped to promote the idea of a Toltec empire although the chacmool sculptures may have originated in the Maya region.
Although the name chacmool was inappropriately applied, it has become a useful label to link stylistically similar sculptures from different regions and periods without imposing a unified interpretation.
Besides these sites, the sculpture was also found in Michoacán, where it is called Uaxanoti (The Seated One) in the Purépecha language.
AZTEC CHACMOOL
During the 1930 excavation of Templo Mayor, the only fully polychrome chacmool to be found at that site was in its original context on the top level of the Tlaloc side (the side dedicated to the rain god) of the temple.
Because this chacmool statue sat in the same position as the sacrificial stone on the Huitzilopochtli side of the temple, "historical interpretations" are confirmed in the idea that this sculpture acted as a divine messenger, a link between the temple priest(s) and the god (in this case the rain god Tlaloc).
The pigment that remained upon this chacmool sculpture was crucial for the iconographic identification of the figure, as it does not contain any iconography or symbols associated with the rain god Tlaloc (the god with which this sculpture is associated at the Templo Mayor).
Upon this Aztec sculptures discovery, a color reconstruction was created as a result of the work involving a series of steps : the production of a line drawing of the statue, a diligent cleaning of the colored surfaces of the statue, and the establishment of spatial recognition by means of the use of "stereoscopic magnifying glasses and ultraviolet light".
Scholars determined that the Aztec chacmool discovered at the Templo Mayor did in fact contain representations of the rain god (Tlaloc) by recognizing similarities between "the circular gold pectoral medallion, the color combination on the petticoat, the black skin, the red hands and feet, and the white headdress and bangles," all of which suggest similar stylistic and iconographic progression among earlier and later Mexica chacmool sculptures.
A second chacmool discovery from the Templo Mayor and dating to a later period displays iconographic features which are distinct from the larger corpus of other figures but consistent with other sculptures found in the same context at the Templo Mayor.
The other representations baring the distinct iconography include Tlaloc ritual vessels and bench reliefs. One of the distinct iconographic features is the representation of the eyes. Whereas Tlaloc's eyes are generally represented with a round goggle-like frame, the later chacmool, the vessels, and the bench relief feature a rectangular eye frame within which almond eyes are engraved.
All three sculptures also include large fangs at the corners of the god's mouth.
The ornaments worn by the later chacmool and depicted in the vessels and the bench relief of the Templo Mayor are also distinct rather than the characteristic earspools with a square plug and central dangal. These examples sport oversized circular spools.
All three examples are also adorned with a multistrand, beaded collar in which one strand has larger beads that have been interpreted as hanging bells.
The chacmool holds onto a cuauhxicalli vessel that also is engraved with the face of the god with the same rectangular eye and mouth features.
THIS PHOTO shows a Maya chacmool from Chichen Itza displayed at the National Museum of Anthropology
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