Fabricating Political Constituencies, Artistic Production at the Templo Mayor

Summary

The excavation of the Templo Mayor yielded a plethora of objects that testify to the supreme ideological importance this edifice held for the Mexica confederacy. While the offerings unearthed within the foundations of this structure comprised a variety of portable objects placed in intimate settings, larger sculptures seem to have articulated more public iconographic programs. My analysis of both portable and monumental sculptures shows these works emphasized the bricolage of incorporated and coerced Mexica political constituents. This talk outlines the emergence of politically savvy, complementary, iconographic themes rendered on portable and monumental sculptures set onto the Templo Mayor that functioned as Mexica political stratagems. A contextualization of iconographic themes in relation to reported historical events adumbrates the role visual culture held in issues of statecraft for the Mexica. This paper contextualizes my findings with recent materials research, which shows many objects that referenced a number of the diverse cultures deposited at the Templo Mayor were created locally, to argue that this co-opted fabrication of materials provided a political representation in art. This successful artistic production, I argue, yielded high political dividends, was a materiality of Mexica authority, and proved seminal in contributing to the rapid rise of this powerful conglomerate.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Crafting the Tenochcan Imperial Identity and Style

Keywords

Spatial Coverage