The Inscribed Spring: Hieroglyphs, Royal Ritual and the Sacred Waters of Chapultepec

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Chapultepec is well known as a sacred mountain, water source, and ceremonial locale within the landscape immediately surrounding Tenochtitlan. Still visible today on the hill’s eastern slope is the sculpture of the deified portrait of Moteczomah Xocoyotzin, facing toward the main precinct and overlooking a large natural spring that once fed the famous aqueduct leading into Tenochtitlan. This paper will offer new interpretations of this all-important “water-mountain" (altepetl), focusing on previously unreported hieroglyphs carved into the boulder outcrop at the source of the former spring, below Moteczomah's portrait. These include a year date and a toponymic place glyph possibly designating the spring itself. The close resonances between Chapultepec and the sacred mountain of Tezcotzingo, 40 kilometers. away, will also be re-examined. The Chapultepec spring and its associated sculptures and glyphs offer a new perspective on Mexica royal ceremonialism within a localized sacred landscape. These features specifically point to Moteczomah's role as a deified performer "in nature," and as the human embodiment of a singularly important water-mountain.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53248