Almenas and Architecture

Summary

Almenas, roof ornaments comprised commonly of ceramic or stone in Teotihuacan that most archaeologists toss aside unknowing of their identity, have been a source of research in archaeology recently after Michael E. Smith and Clara Paz Bauista’s paper "Las almenas en la ciudad Antigua de Teotihuacan" in 2015. Continuing Dr. Smith’s original research, I have compiled a database of complete almenas from museums and published resources to make new categories for the artifacts. Although many whole almenas are within museums and published sources little is known about their significance. Given the complete roof ornaments, I could reevaluate the pieces Dr. Smith originally studied and give less subjective categories to as well. Then Dr. Smith and I analyzed the information known spatially about the roof ornaments to denote if these almenas truly do, as previously thought, denote building function. Dr. Smith and Paz showed in their paper that almenas were widespread in Teotihuacan and associated with several distinct types of structures. The database of whole almenas permits new hypothesis about how these artifacts signal functions continuing with Dr. Smith’s work. This research will assist in defining building function and give clearer categories to these artifacts to aid future archaeologists.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21976