The Acolman Cross and the Maize God

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 1: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The monastery of Acolman founded by the Augustinian order is located near Teotihuacan. The most astonishing tequitqui (Amerindian-Christian art of the sixteenth century) monument in Acolman is the atrial cross made in 1550. Although open-air crosses existed in Europe, the Mexican crosses have a different iconography and function. The atrial cross of Acolman, provides a dual system of religious meanings: Christian and Indigenous. The cross is the central symbol of Christianity and represents the death and resurrection of Christ. Likewise, the Christian cross at the center of the atrio was understood by the Indians as another representation of the World Tree, the Axis Mundi that connected the gods of the Upperworld and Underworld with the human beings on the surface of the earth. The Indigenous cosmogram was completed with the four posa chapels representing the four corners of the world and the side walls of the atrio oriented to the four directions of the Universe. I will compare the Acolman cross with the Maya tablet of the Foliated Cross of Palenque to establish the convergence and relative equivalence of the two visions of the world. Based in those Amerindian-Christian concepts, I will propose an interpretation of the Acolman Cross.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bringing the Past to Life, Part 1: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38005.0