Mesoamerican and Southwest Art & Artifacts

Mesoamerican and Southwest Artifacts

Mammoform vessels: Maya adoption of Teotihuacan styles (flaring lip, thin orange); often tripod vessels.
Mammoform refers to sweet potato (camote), a South American domesticate, not breasts.
Chocolate pots: often contain a cold derivative vitamin and cacao residues; frequently foamy chocolate.

Made from jadeite, very dense and heavy; difficult to work, highly polished.
Ritualistic use: often found in caches (e.g., temple caches), sometimes in sets of nine (for nine lords of the night).
Cosmological origin referent: pit placement representing the primordial hole of human emergence.
Decapitator axes: elongated form associated with decapitation sacrifice.

Mano Metate: basalt grinding stone, similar to mortar and pestle for small-scale grinding (e.g., salsa).

Region (Jalisco, Michoacán, Colima) became culturally distinct from Central Mexico.
Architecture maintained classic period forms (talud-tablero).
Art depicted daily life scenes: women nursing, ball games, shamans, houses.
Colima style: often features Mesoamerican cotton garments, keloid scarring, ear spools, body paint, cotton turbans.
Many figures are feminine.

Strong trade connections, not just corn diffusion.
Paquimé (Casas Grandes): a trading outpost in Northern Chihuahua with Pueblo and Mesoamerican traits.
- Owl bottles: containers for souls with owl figures.
Chaco Canyon (Four Corners):
- Pueblo III and IV pottery: black-on-white, fine quality, made with yucca fiber (revived by Hopi).
- Chaco beer mugs: unique to Chaco Canyon (Pueblo Bonito), rare to find unbroken as discard usually involved breakage.
Hohokam Culture (Southern Arizona):
- Exhibited strong Mesoamerican traits (e.g., ball courts with rubber balls).
- Pottery depicted antelopes, animals of the range; often featured wind symbolism (whirling patterns).

Thirteen Serpent: a prominent cloud goddess, consort of the lightning god.
Classic Zapotec style: deities (male and female) typically depicted seated, kneeling, with long bony fingers draped over a throne, wearing elite regalia.
Features: braided hairdo (still worn by Zapotec women), jade-colored necklace (originally green-blue).
Pigmentation: Cinnabar (red pigment) discovered in ear spools, around chin, and inside the mouth/teeth.
Worn a huipil (classic Postclassic garment).
Ritual object: acts as an incense burner (sensor tube on back).
Function: likely a household or niche deity (patroness) for elite palaces or farmer's huts, used for blood offerings (stingray spine/cactus thorn).
Characteristic