The Representation of the Serpent in the Rock Art of the Eastern Zone of Guatemala: a Chor’ti’ Cosmological Interpretation
Author(s): Marlen Garnica; Ramiro Edmundo Martinez Lemus; Eugenia Robinson
Year: 2019
Summary
This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
The archaeological investigations in the eastern zone of Guatemala have reported many sites with painted rock
art or petroglyphs. There are other similar representations in rock shelters in Guatemala especially at
La Casa de las Golondrinas in the Antigua Valley. At these sites, the representation of serpents is very frequent
and significant because it relates to rituals of fertility, water sources and the regeneration of the earth.
A bibliographic and ethnographic review of the Chor’ti’ area shows that the serpent is mythological, and it
represents natural events such as natural disasters, presence or absence of rain, and seismic movements.
For this reason, the inhabitants of the region perform ritual to maintain order and harmony in the universe.
Cite this Record
The Representation of the Serpent in the Rock Art of the Eastern Zone of Guatemala: a Chor’ti’ Cosmological Interpretation. Marlen Garnica, Ramiro Edmundo Martinez Lemus, Eugenia Robinson. Presented at The 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Albuquerque, NM. 2019 ( tDAR id: 451216)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: Petrography, Non-ceramic
•
Caves and Rockshelters
•
Paleoindian and Paleoamerican
Geographic Keywords
Mesoamerica: Maya highlands
Spatial Coverage
min long: -94.197; min lat: 14.009 ; max long: -87.737; max lat: 18.021 ;
Record Identifiers
Abstract Id(s): 26278