The Templo Mayor

The polished, naturalistic visage of an effigy mask of Coyolxauhqui conveys the significance of transnational and transhistorical cultural exchange to the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan. The mask, discovered at the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan, is displayed in the exhibition “Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas” at the J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles. Its presence emphasizes both the importance of the Aztec ceremonial center at Tenochtitlan and the significance of the mythology of Coyolxauhqui to the Mexica. The spatial narrative at the Templo Mayor is rooted in the Coyolxauhqui story. Vanquished warriors were ritually sacrificed at the Templo Mayor, and then tumbled down from the top of the Templo to the Coyolxauhqui stone,

mimicking the fall of the deity herself. This spatial narrative vindicated the territorial conquests and power of the Aztec Empire. As an extension of this mythology, the Coyolxauhqui mask itself inspires inquiry into the Aztec relationship to their Olmec predecessors, because although made by an Aztec craftsperson, the mask invokes distinctive stylistic traits of Olmec art. This mask thus embodies the function of Olmec art as a creative catalyst for the Aztecs, and the ways in which the Aztecs honored the Olmec people through a tradition of antiquarianism. Through formal analysis of the Coyolxauhqui mask, the comparison of its features to other Olmec-style masks found at the same site, and an examination of the worth of art in Aztec society, I will explore how the mask manifests themes of conquest, heritage and exchange in material form.
The mask is made of a light, bluish-grey greenstone. The surface is smooth and glossy. The lines of the mask are curved and organic. The face of Coyolxauhqui has realistic musculature and facial features, with high cheekbones, a broad nose, wide, fleshy lips, a furrowed brow and and half-open eyes (see fig 1). Her open mouth and half-open eyes depict her as dead, which is in keeping with the conclusion of her mythology, in which she is dismembered and thrown off a mountain by her brother Huitzilopochtli. She has ornate ear decorations, and a strap across her nose connects to two teardrop shaped bells on her cheeks - a reference to her name, “Bells Her Cheeks.”
Greenstone and jade masks similar to the Coyolxauhqui effigy mask discovered at the Templo Mayor have a long history in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, reaching back to the Olmec. Research about jade objects in Mesoamerica connects the tradition of the craft through eras and regions. “Evidence at Teotihuacan and in the Maya area indicate that both cultures were aware of Olmec jades as representative of a distinct style… In Teotihuacan murals, the jades pour from hands in streams of water, indicating the same associations as in Aztec times [because the Aztec also associated jade and water]. The explicit depiction of Olmec jades indicates that their antiquity also had significance.” This scholarship traces the connection between jade craftsmanship and Mesoamerican antiquarianism. Antiquarianism is defined here as the “collection of ancient objects and creation of archaizing copies.” This was a practice of the Aztec, exemplified in the caches of objects from pre-Aztec antiquity discovered at the Templo Mayor. Proof of further Aztec antiquarianism also exists in the form of the obsidian-inlay greenstone mask (see fig. 5) displayed in “Golden Kingdoms…” The mask was made in Tenochtitlan by Mexica artists. It has been deemed by the curators of “Golden Kingdoms” to be an imitation of art from Teotihuacan, an important pre-Aztec civilization. It is clear that jade masks formed a special link between Olmec and Aztec art.
The Coyolxauhqui effigy mask is yet another example of Aztec antiquarianism. The musculature of the Coyolxauhqui mask conjures up the naturalistic features of the Colossal Heads crafted by the Olmec. These Colossal Heads were some of the first monumental structures created in Mexico. The Coyolxauhqui mask’s plump lips and flat, broad nose are reminiscent of Colossal Head 5 (see fig. 2, fig. 3). The physiognomy of the Coyolxauhqui mask also evokes the stylistic traits of an Olmec heirloom mask found buried near to it at the Templo Mayor. Displayed next to the Coyolxauhqui mask in “Golden Kingdoms…” at the Getty Center, this Olmec style mask is made of a similar greenstone jade. The mask’s furrowed brow and high cheekbones mirror the physiognomy of the Coyolxauhqui mask (see fig. 4). The material of the Coyolxauhqui mask is also evocative of the type of jade work that was highly valued in Olmec times. Aztec craftsmen had the opportunity to choose from a wide range of materials. Thus their choice of jade for this mask forges a transhistorical connection with the Olmec. Although the Olmec civilization flourished thousands of years before the Mexica were prospering in Tenochtitlan, “Olmec jades were also buried in graves in Guerrero, the source of so many other greenstone objects in Tenochtitlan. Thus the Mexica could have been exposed to enough Olmec objects to recognize them as a distinctive style.” The similarities between the Coyolxauhqui mask, the Olmec Colossal Heads and the Olmec style mask discovered at the same site act as proof that the Coyolxauhqui mask contains direct stylistic references to Olmec art.
The function and use of the Coyolxauhqui mask is complicated by “The Function of Art in Mesoamerica”, in which art historian Esther Pasztory argues that art in Aztec society functioned as a method of wealth accumulation. There was no formal type of currency used in Aztec culture. Informal types ranged from mantles given as tributes from subjugated states to cacao beans. But wealth accumulation in the Aztec Empire was most distinctly characterized by the accumulation of art objects. This argument is based in the findings at ruins like the Templo Mayor, where offerings consisted of art objects, including heirloom ones from Olmec and Toltec ruins, such as the Olmec greenstone mask discussed in this paper. This function of art objects as commodities expands our understanding of what is embodied by the Coyolxauhqui mask.
The Templo Mayor, where the Coyolxauhqui mask was discovered, was also home to the famous Coyolxauhqui stone.

The Coyolxauhqui stone is a crucial part of the narrative of the Templo Mayor. At the Templo, vanquished soldiers were sacrificed daily. After being slaughtered, they were thrown from the summit of the Templo to the bottom, tumbling down the structure of the Templo, which was built to mirror the Serpent Hill of the Coyolxauhqui legend. In the mythology of Coyolxauhqui, she is angered by her mother, Coatlicue “Serpent Skirt,” after she becomes pregnant with a child who is a potential threat to Coyolxauhqui’s inheritance. Coyolxauhqui then musters her four hundred brothers to fight against her mother. But before she is able to slay Coatlicue, her new brother, Huitzilopochtli, springs from Coatlicue’s womb, fully grown. He then dismembers Coyolxauhqui and throws her to the bottom of Serpent Hill. The daily sacrifice at the Templo Mayor was meant to mimic this mythology. Because Huitzilopochtli was a Mexica culture hero, this daily imitation of his victory creates a spatial narrative of conquest at the Templo Mayor. This ritualistic and spatial narrative functions to justify the territorial narrative of the Aztec empire. The importance of this narrative to the Mexica highlights the gravity of the Coyolxauhqui mask being an emulation of Olmec art style. By paying homage to a predecessor culture with a symbol that functions to justify their empire, the Mexica are emphasizing the importance of a cultural antecedent in their present. It is also imperative that they are relating their cultural heritage to their possession of an empire, and the subjugation of their tributary states. Not only did an emulation of their cultural antecedents matter in terms of their contemporary culture, but it also was relevant towards their status as rulers of an

empire.
The Aztec Empire was an entity which flourished as a result of exchange: wealth was exchanged in the form of art objects, cacao and mantles from tributary states to the Mixtec ruling power; the hearts of conquered soldiers were exchanged in return for the sun’s daily rising and setting; culture was exchanged between states, and history was communicated through art and architecture. Art objects are polysemic: cultural heritage, territorial conquest and economic commodification are all revealed in this mask of Coyolxauhqui. The mask specifically references the economic exchange of art objects as currency and the artistic transhistorical exchange of style between the Olmec and the Aztec. The Coyolxauhqui mask clarifies the fluid transfer of these phenomena across societies and time. The mythological narrative of Coyolxauhqui contributes to the cultural narrative of the triumphs of the Mexica. The site on which it was found functions as a physical location with a spatial narrative that further justifies the territorial conquests of the Aztec Empire. And the stylistic properties of the mask, harking back to the Olmec, express the cultural and historical understandings of the Aztec at Tenochtitlan, and the recognition that they paid to the civilizations that came before them. Altogether, the mask of Coyolxauhqui clarifies the transnational, transhistorical and transcultural artistic traditions of the Aztec at Tenochtitlan.