Representations of fauna in mural paintings of Tenochtitlan

Summary

The accelerated process of deterioration of the murals from the religious buildings of Tenochtitlan has threatened their long-term conservation. This has impulsed different activities including the creation of the project for the graphic documentation of the polychromy in the Mexica capital. It was specifically developed to recover and store, as an accurate witness, all the motives of the paintings, as well as its architectural context. Over the course of twenty years, the development of this methodology has combined different registering process, including direct copies over the decorated facades, the chromatic restitution of each mural, the use of topographic surveying, high definition photography and vectorial models of the six buildings that still have paintings. One of the greatest discoveries that this methodology produced was the identification of some traces almost unseen by naked eye due to the poor state of conservation. This paper presents the two neo-teotihuacan buildings known as "Red Temples" (Templo Rojo Norte and Templo Rojo Sur) where we identified some faunistic motives. Simultaneously, the analysis between the teotihuacan paintings style in relation with the one from the mexicas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Animals and the Sacred Precinct of Tenochtitlan: Biology, Archaeology, History, and Conservation

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16954