Masking Practices and Layered Identities in Offering 1 from Los Horcones, Chiapas, Mexico

Summary

Discovered in 2006, Offering 1 from Los Horcones, Chiapas represents a unique grouping of figurines deposited perhaps to commemorate the construction of Mound B1 from this site. Previous publication of this offering focused on deriving meaning from this cache based on its context and stylistic attributes. During the summer of 2014, the offering was reconstructed and new layers of meaning perhaps representing a more emic perspective on its meaning emerged. The offering, made up of masks and figurine heads, sheds light on the practices of ritual masking and on discourses of layered identities taking place at the Early Classic site of Los Horcones. The ritual practices revealed will be viewed in light of Los Horcones’ history of contacts with distant regions and centers such as Teotihuacan, the Maya region and the Gulf Coast of Veracruz to reveal how masking practices viewed here from analysis of small scale artifacts addresses larger scale social processes.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage