The Pyramid of the Moon

Teotihuacan Pyramid of the Moon, Completed in 250 C.E., Mexico City, Mexico

Teotihuacan is believed to be the first large chief city of an abandoned civilization in the Americas. Despite the large remaining infrastructures of the city along and hieroglyphs that line the walls of some structures, we have little to no idea on the base information of the Teotihuacan people. Even what they originally called themselves is still a mystery to archaeologists. With a lack of evidence for what their structures were designed for, we can only speculate the importance and meaning behind certain structures. Artifacts surrounding the site as well as similar ones across Mexico lead researchers to believe that the Teotihuacan civilization was a powerful one that participated in trade with other cities.


While we do not know much about the Teotihuacan culture, we have learned a little bit about this abandoned city, more specifically, the Pyramid of the Moon. The Pyramid of the Moon lies in the Western part of the city, at the end of the main road (Commonly called the Avenue of the dead because the Aztecs believed the city was surrounded by tombs but, because this is not proven, I will refer to it as the main road) and stands a total of 141 feet tall. It is speculated that it could have been even taller with wooden support and structures at the top that has long since been destroyed. While it's true purpose to the historical narrative isn't concrete, excavations done on the base of the pyramid staircase give us insight into possible purposes of it. The excavation exposed a tomb of a man with goods such as greenware, obsidian, and sacrificial animals. While the Pyramid of the Sun on the south of the main road has repeatedly been called the "birthing place" of this culture, or the place of "emergence," the Pyramid of the Moon seems to have a different narrative, where sacrifices occur and important individuals are buried.




The name of the Pyramid itself gives an insight into its purpose, as for centuries other cultures have believed the moon to be the resting place of the dead, the night sky a final resting place for your loved ones. For example, in early Hindu practices, it was believed that souls went to the moon to await their rebirthing, following the moon cycle from death to rebirth (new moon to full moon). In another example, the Ancient Greek religious practice, it was believed that the moon was the home of the dead.




In the end, we do not know much about the Teotihuacan culture, or even what their true name was. However, we can speculate the meaning of the remains by making connections to other cultures in the area and across the globe.


Sources:

Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Teotihuacan: Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/teot2/hd_teot2.htm (October 2001)


Dr. Maya Jiménez, "Teotihuacan," in Smarthistory, December 17, 2015, accessed November 18, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/teotihuacan-2/.

History.com Editors. “Teotihuacan.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, January 5, 2018. https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-americas/teotihuacan.

Nose Ornaments of the Northern Muche

 

Nose Ornament with Intertwined Serpents, Moche, Peru,  390-450 C.E., The MET

The Moche were not a single unified people, nor were they considered a unified political entity either. The Northern and Southern Moche shared religious ideologies and practices, using the same iconography for artwork, but were otherwise independent identities. The Southern Moche developed fine crafting skills for ceramics, while the Northern Moche were amazing metallurgists. Among these crafted metals were symbols of royalty, regalia. Regalia included earrings, headdresses, nose ornaments, pectoral pieces, and bracelets. These pieces of regalia were made with fine metals, the Northern Moche were fond of gold and silver, to depict the status of the individual wearer. 

This piece is made of gold, two serpents intertwining until the heads would rest on the cheek, the silver plating being the piece that connected to the septum and covered the mouth. Attached to the intertwining bodies of the serpents, there are gold danglers connected in gold wiring to the body that is designed to not only make noise but to reflect light constantly. The intricacy of the piece reflects the power of the Northern Moche. As each piece gets increasingly more intricate and symmetrical, we are able to see the advancement in technology in the Northern Moche's society. The combination of gold and silver itself was a display of expertise, for combining the two required expert knowledge in things such as welding techniques, melting temperatures, and more to bend the metal into these intricate shapes. 

So why is this intricately crafted piece of royal symbology important to art history and to overall history? As mentioned in my previous blog post this week, we can learn about the society they derived from, thus learning from the past and have a roadmap to learn in the future.  The Northern Moche's beliefs tied heavily to cosmology. Gold and silver were divine colors, almost considered living or animate, and combining them reflected balance and harmony. For royalty to wear them, it symbolled the peace they would have in their ruling. Gold representing the sun while silver represented the moon. By learning that peace was important for the Northern Moche, we can understand their society slightly better than how we did in the past. Thus, this simple piece of regalia that looks like just plain jewelry turns a blurry image of a society into a crisp photograph for us to learn from. 

Sources:

Dr. Sarahh Scher, "Moche culture, an introduction," in Smarthistory, August 27, 2016, accessed November           13, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/moche-intro/.

“Nose Ornament with Intertwined Serpents.” metmuseum.org. Accessed November 13, 2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/313400.

The Were-Jaguar

Olmec Were-Jaguar, Museo Regional de Antropologia at Villahermosa, 1500 to 400 BCE. 

When examining ancient cultures and their remnants such as statues, decaying buildings, old clothing, the primary purpose are to understand how they lived their lives. The present can easily become the past and because of that, learning from the past is one of the easiest ways that we as humans have to understand people that are different from us. 

The Olmec was a civilization that flourished in early Mesoamerica from around 1500 BCE to around 400 BCE. The Olmecs were known as the ‘mother culture’ of Mesoamerica, and thus, to understand them, we are able to understand the civilizations that were influenced by the Olmecs in an easier way. The quickest method of understanding a culture is through its religion. Religion forms social structures and helps unify people, making people share a set of beliefs and practices. This sharing of beliefs and practices allows for a sense of trust and respect, allowing civilizations to be built.  Because of this, that is why we are examining the Were-Jaguar sculpture. 

The Olmec religion was primarily centered around 8 gods: the maize god, the rain spirit, the feathered serpent, the bird monster, the banded eye-god, the shark monster, the Olmec dragon, and finally, the Jaguar. The jaguar was the shaman of the animal world, referred to as the Nahual, which was the title given to those that were the animal form of a god. Outside of this importance for spirits, they believed that the jaguar was a deity of fertility and rain as well as the embodiment of the living and the dead. Jaguars were believed to be the most powerful and feared animal to the Olmecs, so they held a lot of titles in the Olmec religion. A common practice was to ‘transform’ into a were-jaguar as a common practice of Shamanism during this time. Singing and chanting to the Jaguar deity would occur followed by the Shaman dancing and chanting to the spirit world, at the end of it, it was believed that the man would be half-human, half jaguar. 

The sculpture above is a symbol of this transformation. The Were-Jaguars are often depicted with wide noses, slanted eyes, and a cleft head. It is believed that the meanings of the statues have changed over time, from altars for gifts to the jaguar god to reminders to the Olmec people as a form of symbolization of the religion itself.  By examining these sculptures, we can learn about the importance of them in the society they derived from, thus learning from the past and have a roadmap to learn in the future. 

Sources: 

“ The Olmec Gods.” Ancient Indian Civilizations. Accessed November 11, 2020. https://www.aaanativearts.com/ancient-indians/olmec-gods.htm.

Cartwright, Mark. “Olmec Civilization.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, November 9, 2020. https://www.ancient.eu/Olmec_Civilization/.

Lydenburg Heads

 

Lydenburg Head, Lydenburg, South Africa (500 C.E.)

The Lydenburg Heads were a series of seven terracotta sculptures found in Lydenburg, South Africa. The heads themselves are very unique with different types of mouths, eyes, head shapes, and more varying in each sculpture. But what I find most interesting is the lack of knowledge that the United States has on them. These sculptures are surrounded by a lot of questions in the United States, several sources explaining that these were almost like helmets to the people of South Africa, believed to be used for initiation ceremonies and other types of ceremonies such as religious ones, but nothing concretely supported by culture and historical research. To try and get past all of the questions surrounding these sculptures, I went to the website for Iziko, the South African museum that holds these artifacts. Attached to the information on their display is a video where the archaeology director of the museum and an archaeology professor of Cape Town's University discuss the true meaning behind these sculptures. 

The people who carved the Lydenburg Head sculptures arrived in South Africa around 2,000 years ago and are believed to be Bantu speakers. They were also great craftsmen in pottery and metallurgy, living in villages and surviving mostly off of their farming rather than their crafted goods. The makers of these heads are believed to be senior matriarchs of the community, however, because the evidence is scant regarding these people, it is only a guess. This guess is based upon what has been observed by Bantu language cultures in Africa. Pottery is considered women's work, while metallurgy was considered men's work. These women are believed to have been teachers to younger generations, who would use these sculptures in shows (like a play) to teach the children of the time about responsibility and their roles in the culture. Two of the heads are large enough to be worn by people, while the other five were believed to be placed on poles, similar to puppets on sticks. 

Each head itself is very important, six of them appearing human while the seventh one is designed to resemble an aardvark. This animal is featured in a lot of creation stories in African cultures, which is why it is commonly believed that this is used as a rite of passage into adulthood. The heads were originally found broken, believed to not have been broken as a result of time or a raid of some sort, but an end of this rite of passage. It was the end of childhood and the surfacing of adulthood in the youth of this culture. And that is why these sculptures are so significant to the historic narrative. They are designed to guide children from childhood to adulthood and combine religious teachings with communal responsibility. To learn how society has changed over the years, we first need to understand where it was five, ten, twenty, a thousand years ago.

Sources: 

Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Lydenburg Heads (Ca. 500 A.D.).” metmuseum.org. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2000. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/lyde/hd_lyde.htm.

“Looking A Head: Revisiting the Lydenburg Heads.” Iziko Museums of South Africa. South Africa: Agency of the Department of Arts and Agriculture. Accessed November 4, 2020. https://www.iziko.org.za/exhibitions/looking-a-head-revisiting-lydenberg-heads.

The Kingdom of Ife

 

Shrine Head, Yoruba, Nigeria 12-14th century 

The Yoruba people are an ethnic group of Western Africa, and these individuals trace their lineage to the site of Ife, the place of all creation in the Yoruba religion. For hundreds of years, the Yoruba people have held onto the belief that the person's Iwa, the character, reflected the person's inner energy, the Ase. This inner energy resided in the head of the body, which is a reason why so many remaining ancient art pieces are of the head and neck rather than a whole body. Because of this belief, people who held high amounts of power such as kings or chiefs had to wear veils, to conceal what was believed to be a dangerous level of Ase. Outside of the face covering, the Ase is represented in a cone shape, which is reflected in the headdresses that Ife sculptures wear. This background brings us to the sculpture presented above. 

This sculpture is of a semi-tranquil person, their expression neutral and calm looking, representing the character of the individual, a reflection of the Iwa. Lines decorate the face but avoid the lips, which leads us to the misconception that often surrounds African art. These lines are commonly misinterpreted as scarification, a religious rite of passage symbol in the culture. However, the Yoruba religion does not involve scarification, but despite this, people still believe that scarification is the meaning behind the lines. Looking past this misconception and into the Ife way of life, these lines weren't scars but semi-permanent markings that indicated the status of the elite in this society. The artwork itself for a long time was misinterpreted by Europeans, who believed that African individuals could not make beautiful realism, which is why it was often mistaken as pieces of European art left behind from the Trans-Saharan trade. The individual of this sculpture was very important to the Yoruba religion and to the Kingdom of Ife, providing us insight into the past and present beliefs in this religion. 

Today, Ife remains one of the major religious places for the Yoruba people. The art that remains from the Kingdom of Ife is not only a historical object for achievements of the past, but continue to serve as a regional and religious unifier amongst the Yoruba people that are spread across West Africa, proving it's importance to society and the world around it. Not only does it symbolize a change in the art world from 'what is expected' for African based art, but it also shows how advanced kingdoms such as the Ife get erased from our history books, another reason why it is important to the historical narrative. 

Sources:

Dr. Christa Clarke, "Historical overview: to 1600," in Smarthistory, September 21, 2016, accessed October 30, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/historical-overview/.

"Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa," in Smarthistory, September 19, 2016, accessed October 30, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/kingdom-of-ife-sculptures-from-west-africa/.

“Shrine Head, Ancient Yoruba |  Minneapolis Institute of Art.” Minneapolis Institute of Art. Minneapolis Institute of Art. Accessed October 30, 2020. https://collections.artsmia.org/art/4866/shrine-head-ancient-yoruba. 

The Stelae of Axum

Stelae of Axum, landmark of Axum, Ethiopia.

The Kingdom of Axum was founded in the early first-century common era, flourishing until the ninth century in the horn of Africa, now known as modern Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Djibouti, and southern Yemen. The heart of this kingdom was in Axum, Ethiopia. The Stelae of Axum are a series of granite monoliths in the heart of the Kingdom of Axum. The stelae range from heights anywhere from seventy feet to well over one-hundred feet, an achievement in itself because the stelae are singular shafts of granite. The slab of granite is carved in a peculiar fashion, with fake doors carved at the bottom, log-like flooring carved above it to symbolize a new floor of the tower, then several tiers of carved windows.  Each stela is oblong, not square like at all, with a crescent and disk symbol adorning the top.  While it is well documented that the carved symbols are religious, the meaning of the symbols can only be speculated. The Axum people were pagans up until the fourth century when the new king declared the kingdom Christian. Because of this, we cannot speculate the symbols in terms of Christianity, but rather paganism.  Looking at the symbology of ancient paganism, the symbol of the crescent is a symbol commonly used to represent the phasing from life to death. While a disc symbol can either represent a sun or the shift from mortality to divinity. The true purpose of these stelae is unknown but given the symbology and the placement of them the stelae are widely accepted and believed to serve as grave markers or memorials to important members of society in the third to the fourth-century common era. 

Obelisk of Axum, Henry Salt (1809)

The Axumites put a lot of time, effort, and capital into the creation of the stelae. Each stelae was designed around the person who was being buried. For example, when a king was buried he would have a stelae that were around thirteen stories tall, while a lord would have one that was around two stories tall. The grander the stelae, the grander the title of the individual. That is why the stelae of Axum hold importance to the overall historical narrative. Grave markers are important to society, they are symbols of remembrance for loved ones and have been used for thousands of years. The way people are buried and how their grave is decorated gives an insight into the culture and society that the person once lived in. Across the world, we all have different cultures and ways of doing things such as celebrating our dead. Latin cultures have holidays such as Dia De Los Muertos (the day of the dead) where they go visit the graves of loved ones and make altars for them, while in India they celebrate their ancestors' souls through a holiday called Shradh, not visiting a grave because in Hindu culture most bodies are cremated. These stelae give an insight into the culture of the Axum kingdom before it fell under Christian control, how they remembered their dead, making it vital for it to not be buried under the narrative of Christian gravemarkers. These monoliths are one of the last remnants of this ancient Kingdom and its practices. 

Citations: 

Butzer, Karl W. “Rise and Fall of Axum, Ethiopia: A Geo-Archaeological Interpretation.” American Antiquity, vol. 46, no. 3, 1981, pp. 471–495. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/280596.

Lipsky, George A. (George Arthur). Ethiopia: Its People, Its Society, Its Culture. HRAF Press, 1962, accessed October 28, 2020, https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/62/247/172/75627?redirectedFrom=fulltext.

The British Museum, "The kingdom of Aksum," in Smarthistory, September 23, 2016, accessed October 28, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/the-kingdom-of-aksum/.

Wu Zhen

The Fisherman (Wu Zhen 1350 C.E.,)

The aim of Chinese paintings are to evoke inner essences, emotions, energy, and life. Contrary to what one might think, to accomplish this, the painter would choose to not use color. Each brushstroke is considered a piece to a balanced yet dynamic whole of the painting. This is a reflection of Chinese calligraphy practices, each brushstroke matters and requires a disciplined hand. China during the 1300s didn't necessarily have regular artists. Most artists were scholars that shifted from calligraphy to painting, using the same brushes and ink they would use for calligraphy for painting. These scholar-artists would use their calligraphic training and brushwork to express symbolism, style, and their own beliefs and feelings of the world around them.

A great example of how scholar-artists would do this is 'The Fisherman' painting, painted by a man named Wu Zhen in 1350. Wu Zhen was slightly different compared to other artists at the time. He was a recluse, fond of poetry and cartoon-ish styled figures in his paintings. Most of his paintings were either landscapes or landscapes with fishermen. The fishermen tend to be alone, depicting his reclusive nature. This painting follows the pattern, seemingly to be a reflection of himself, a lone fisherman in the water alone with himself and his thoughts. Accompanying the artwork is a poem Wu Zhen created, reading as: "Red leaves west of the village reflect evening rays, yellow reeds on a sandy bank cast early moon shadows. Lightly stirring his oar, thinking of returning home, he puts aside his fishing pole, and will catch no more."
  
Poetry being added to paintings wasn't an uncommon practice, but Wu Zhen didn't follow the traditional way of adding poetry to paintings. Most often, Chinese paintings had poetry on them, but it wasn't the artist that would typically write on the painting, but rather the recipient of the painting to show appreciation or their response to the painting. Wu Zhen would write the poems himself, another example of his reclusive nature that he would not pass the paintings on to another individual to appreciate.

Sources: 

Hearn, Maxwell. “Chinese Painting | Essay.” metmuseum.org, June 2008. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chin/hd_chin.htm.

“Wu Zhen | Fisherman.” metmuseum.org. Accessed October 23, 2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/41468.

“Wu Zhen: Chinese Painting.” China Online Museum, August 12, 2017. https://www.comuseum.com/painting/masters/wu-zhen/.