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The carvings were found on a mountaintop in the Teotihuacan Valley in Mexico.
Getty Images/iStock Photo
On the southern edge of the Teotihuacan Valley in Mexico, the peak of Cerro Patlachique towers higher than any other.
The mountain’s name means “the place where exchanges/trades/barters are made to produce/manipulate water,” and surveys conducted in the 1960s of the mountain’s summit found temple platforms, mounds and places where people lived centuries ago.
Now, drones used for ground-truthing surveys of archaeological features scoured the summit and found ancient carvings, establishing the summit and peak as a destination for those seeking pilgrimage for the water deities.
Between 2018 and 2022, researchers with the Project Plaza of the Columns Complex and Ciudades Cosmicas Project mapped about 64 square miles of the Teotihuacan Valley, including about 150 acres on Cerro Patlachique, according to a study published Oct. 16 in the peer-reviewed journal Antiquity.
The surveys found “rain roads,” or strategically placed reservoirs along the causeway, that are now used as watering holes for cattle, according to the study.
There was also a possible temple or residential area that sat on the top of a large platform and overlooks the valley, matched on the southern end by another platform that once held carved monuments, locals told researchers.
But most notably, the surveys identified 35 monuments where images had been carved into stone.
The stones appear to be carved into volcanic stone, assumed basalt, but analysis of the rock was not performed for the study, researchers said.
There are a few key features of the artwork.
“First, the portrayal of many elements related to water worship, including celestial and terrestrial water deities, particularly the Teotihuacan Storm God and Water Goddess (with nine and three representations, respectively),” according to the study. “Second, the many calendric dates/numerals identified. Finally, the substantial variation in artistic style and quality.”
Some of the carvings are in the classic Teotihuacan style, researchers said. Others, however, show more individual artistic license, and two carvings show new designs drawn over the old.
The Storm God is depicted with goggles and a “prominent, fanged mouth,” researchers said. The “bug eyes” date back to images first found on water jars around 300 B.C., and later examples follow the same style until the pronounced eyes took on a more rimmed appearance like glasses or goggles.
In three carvings, the Storm God appears next to the Water Goddess, or Chalchiuhtlicue, according to the study. She appears with an open mouth and can be identified by her hand position and adornment.
“Thirteen monuments have explicit dates in the 260-day calendar and/or numerals, with six having additional dates and/or other iconographic elements,” researchers said. “At least eight seem to represent year-bearers, day names that specify the year of the 365-day calendar.”
Mountaintop shrines were important pilgrimage sites following the ritual calendar in ancient Mesoamerica, researchers said.
In this era, which was recorded between the Epiclassic and late post classic periods (between 650 A.D. and 1521 A.D.), the 365-day calendar was broken down into four day names: Reed, Flint, House and Rabbit, according to the study.
The carvings on Cerro Patlachique may record historical events, researchers said.
Other carvings show human-like figures, feline imagery and a flower or shield image, according to the study.
“As a predilect site of communication with the divine, Cerro Patlachique is revealed as a sacred mountain based on the monuments and their depictions of water deities and calendar dates,” researchers said. “The site provides a firm example of the intricate and long-term entanglement of directional mountains, rain deities, calendric cycles and pilgrimage that characterises many ancient and contemporary Mesoamerican communities.”
Significant looting has prevented previously discovered monuments from being studied again, researchers said, but studies that use more technology like the mapping can help preserve the heritage found on the mountain.
Cerro Patlachique is in central Mexico, northeast of Mexico City.
The research team includes Nawa Sugiyama, Karl A. Taube, Saburo Sugiyama and Ariel Texis Muñoz.
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Irene Wright
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