Coatepantli is a

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

word meaning "wall of serpents". It comes from the words ''coatl'' meaning serpent and ''tepantli'' meaning wall. It is an architectural motifLeonardo López Luján, Alfredo López Austin
"El coatepantli de Tenochtitlan. Historia de un malentendido"
, '' Arqueología Mexicana núm. 111, pp. 64-71'', Retrieved on 5 March 2019. found in archeological sites in

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

Purpose

There is no consensus on the purpose of these walls. Many researchers have suggested that the coatepantli were used to mark the boundary between ceremonial and non-ceremonial land, and at times the word has been used to signify any wall which encloses a sacred space, notably in Tlatelolco. Recent research disputes this and suggests that they varied in their nature, but they were not explicit boundaries between the sacred and the secular. Estela_del_Coatepantli

Examples

Only three coatepantli are known to exist. The oldest was constructed at the Tula site between 950 CE and 1200 CE. The

Tenayuca Tenayuca ( ) is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican archaeological site in the Valley of Mexico. In the Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology, Tenayuca was a settlement on the former shoreline of the western arm of Lake Texcoco. It was locate ...

and

Tenochtitlán , also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th annivers ...

coatepantli were constructed around 1500 CE. It is believed that the Tula coatepantli was the prototype for the others. Aside from the location and date of their construction, these walls are distinct in their forms as well.

Tula

The 36-meter-long coatepantli of Tula depicts, in

bas relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

, serpents appearing to devour skeletal figures. Some sources describe the figures as leaving the mouths of the snakes, and others describe them as being carried by the snakes. London 176

Originally the background and flesh of the skeletal figures was painted red. The serpents were painted either blue or yellow in an alternating pattern. The teeth of the serpents and the bones of the skeletal figure were white. One interpretation of these carvings is that the snakes represent the earth consuming the dead or the need for human sacrifice to appease the gods. Another theory asserts that the skeletons are representations of past kings or warriors and that the serpents, rather than being symbols of the earth, are rather markers of royalty.Jordan, Keith
"Serpents, skeletons, and ancestors?: The Tula coatepantli revisited."
''

Ancient Mesoamerica. 24. 243-274 Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient hi ...

'', retrieved on 5 March 2019.

Jorge R. Acosta Jorge Ruffier Acosta (1908 – 5 March 1975) was a Mexican archaeologist who worked on numerous major archaeological sites in Mesoamerica, including Chichen Itza, Teotihuacán, Oaxaca, Palenque, Monte Albán and Tula. His excavations at Tula wer ...

, the discoverer of the coatepantli at Tula believed the skeletal figure was a representation of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the Lord of the Dawn, who was often depicted with a skeletal face. Analogs to the iconography found at Tula can also be found at

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

sites such as

Chichen Itza Chichén Itzá , , often with the emphasis reversed in English to ; from () "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people, Itza people" (often spelled ''Chichen Itza'' in English and traditional Yucatec Maya) was a large Pre-Columbian era, ...

and

Yaxchilan Yaxchilan () is an ancient Maya city located on the bank of the Usumacinta River in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. In the Late Classic Period Yaxchilan was one of the most powerful Maya states along the course of the Usumacinta River, with Pied ...

Tenayuca

The wall at Tenayuca is 170 meters long and features 138 sculpted rattle snakes on three sides of the base of the temple pyramid. The snakes on the east and west side were painted green to represent the god of rain and fertility

Tláloc Tláloc ( ) is the god of rain in Aztec religion. He was also a deity of earthly fertility and water, worshipped as a giver of life and sustenance. This came to be due to many rituals, and sacrifices that were held in his name. He was feared ...

. The snakes on the north side were painted red and black to represent the war god Huitzilopochtli. Similar to the coatepantli of Tula, the wall here is believed to be represent fire and regeneration. Templo Mayor serpents 2

Tenochtitlán

Based on second-hand accounts, the wall at Tenochtitlán was thought for many years to have enclosed the entirety of the sacred precinct of Tenochtitlán and consist of numerous snakes, but archaeological work in 1981 revealed that the sacred precinct of the city extended beyond the coatepantli and that the coatepantli consisted of two walls in the form of large snakes with painted heads, surrounding the

Templo Mayor The (English: Main Temple) was the main temple of the Mexica people in their capital city of Tenochtitlan, Tenōchtitlan, which is now Mexico City. Its architectural style belongs to the late Mesoamerican chronology, Postclassic period of Me ...

. One snake was situated to the north of the temple and was painted blue to represent the rain god Tláloc. The other, around the southern side of the pyramid, was painted

ochre Ochre ( ; , ), iron ochre, or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colou ...

and represented the war god Hitzilopochtli.

References

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External links

Presencia de la ausencia: Una propuesta para la ciudad.
Nahuatl words and phrases Mesoamerica