Public monuments and sacred mountains: Observations on three Formative Period sacred landscapes

Abstract

The origins of Mesoamerica’s monumental art lie in the Formative(Pre-Classic)1 period and are clearly attributable to the Gulf CoastOlmec. The magnificence of Olmec monuments has attracted schol-arly inquiry for more than fifty years, but during that period the monuments have been studied primarily as individual works of art. A purpose of the monu-mental art was presumably to communicate certain “messages ” to its viewers, yet what those messages might be, and how the placement of the monuments within sites may have facilitated that communication, are issues that have re-ceived very little serious consideration. I began to recognize the relevance of “message ” and monument placement while directing the Chalcatzingo Archaeological Project in the 1970s. Chalcatzingo, in the highlands of Central Mexico, is one of several Formative period centers outside of the Gulf Coast whose citizens began to create and display Olmec-like monumental art after ca. 900 b.c. At the time we began our research, 12 such stone monuments were known at Chalcatzingo, and an addi-tional 18 were discovered during our three years of fieldwork there (Grove and Angulo 1987). As each of these 18 carvings came to light, it became increas-ingly evident that their symbolic content was directly correlated with the area of the site at which they had been displayed. For example, monuments carrying the theme of rain and plant fertility are common to one particular site area, while those depicting rulership-related themes occur in a separate area (Grove 1 The terms Pre-Classic and Formative are generally interchangeable. Pre-Classic is used primarily in the Maya area, while Formative is more commonly used by North American scholars dealing with Central Mexican archaeology.

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