Aztec Stoneworking.
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Chacmool:
Chacmools were vessels made of basalt, and were used to contain sacrificial offerings to the gods. As such, they were the intermediaries between gods and men and were placed outside temples.
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Stoneworking was a craft taught from parent to child, as shown in the image above.
The Aztecs primarily used the stone basalt. As this stone could not be given a high finish, the sculptures would be covered in plaster, polished and painted. The use of colour performed a very important function in Aztec Art; buildings as well as sculptures were painted in bright colours, and each colour had a special significance. Further, the deities represented in each scuplture were often identifiable by the colours in which they were painted.
The stone working which produced such large reliefs as the Calendar or Sun Stone and the Stone of Tizoc derives from a tradition and heritage of sculpting clay into the images of animals, humans and gods. In stone, the sculptures vary in size from small, such as the conch shell below, (87cm x 74.5 cm) to the enormous Calendar Stone and other enormous works and statues.
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Aztec stoneworking will here be exemplified through the stone carvings of animals since they were of prime importance to the Aztecs."In many cases they are portrayed with a painstaking attention to detail which reveals the artist's sympathy with his subject. The Aztec's fascination with the natural world had a deep religious and symbolic basis. Animals were thought to be intimately bound up in the affairs of the gods and the ordering of the universe."(Baquedano 1984:69) As such, many animals were often found in association with particular deities or gods, such as the hummingbird, who Huitzilopochtli is not only associated with, but sometimes appears as.
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(Baquedano 1984:76)
The Fire Serpent (xiuhcoatl)
Fire Serpents apparently helped Huitilopochtli to defeat his brother and sisters when he was born, and as such, they have attained much importance. They were used as decorations on Temples of the Sun.
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(Baquedano 1984:76)
Coiled rattlesnake.
To the Aztecs, snakes represented fertility, and are the most often used animal motif. They were represented in different forms and on different levels:realistic representations of the rattlesnake; mythological serpents such as those associated with Quetzalcoatl, and the fire serpents as already mentioned. Further, "rattlesnakes were among the animals kept in Moctezuma's menagerie at Tenochtitlan, as described by Bernal Diaz:'They had many vipers in this accursed house, and poisonous snakes which have something that sounds like a bell on the end of their tails. These, which are the deadliest serpents of all, they kept in jars and great pottery vessels full of feathers, in which they laid their eggs and reared their young.'"(Baquedano 1984:73)
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(Baquedano 1984:74)
The Eagle.
The eagle was another important symbol of the solar cult. "In fact, the Aztecs thought of the sun as an eagle: Quauhtli (=eagle) was another name for Tonatiuh, the sun god. The eagle often appeared in calendrical and mythological texts, and was also the emblem of the knightly Order of the Eagle."(Baquedano 1984:69)
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(Baquedano 1984:76)
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The Owl.
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(Baquedano 1984:89)
Fragment of a Stone Box showing the Ruler, Ahuitzotl.
The function of these intricately carved boxes, the tepetlacalli, is not precisely known. However, it is possible that they were cinerary caskets and associated with funerary rituals. This particular box, and the detail below, recount the life and death by floods, of the ruler Ahuitotl.
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"Aztec craftsmen were employed by the state to make colossal basalt sculptures. Such figures as the great Coatlicue and the disk of Coyolxauqui, and the huge dragon-heads that form balustrade-ends in pyramid stairways, are examples of the Aztec genius for carving in high relief; although stones such as the Coatlicue or the stone of Tizoc were conceived and meant to be viewed as three dimensional objects, one always senses the weight of the monolith." (Townsend 1992:178)
The technologies of quarrying, transporting, and working large monoliths were already well developed as far back as Olmec times, 900 b.c. and had reached new levels of achievement in Teotihuacan (during the early centuries a.d) where sculptural monuments weighing up to 40 tons were brought from distant quarries (presumably using log rollers) to be set up in the ceremonial centre.(Townsend 1992:178)
The Aztecs acquired the tradition of monumental stone carving first from Atzcapotzalco (the capital of the Tepanec kingdom), and later from the Huaxtecs of the Gulf Coast. (Townsend 1992:178)
However the aztecs did develop their own individual style.
Two of the greatest examples of monumental stone working are the Aztec Calendar Sun Stone and the Stone of Tizoc.
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