“In 2007, the team leaded by archaeologist Fernando Carrizosa made the same observations at the lunar deity Coyolxauhqui monolith, finding evidence of red, ochre, blue, white and black paints. Other studies confirm it, concluding that Mexica palette was limited to these 5 colors; shades like brown or pink were never used in sculpture or mural painting”.
Lopez Lujan informed that studies made in 2008 and 2009 on the paint over Tlaltecuhtli monolith, found in October 2006 in Mexico City Historical Center, have deepened; “Soon after Tlaltecuhtli was exhumed by members of the Urban Archaeology Program, we took abundant samples of the pictorial layer, which had an excellent conservation state.
“A high-level multidisciplinary team, integrated by archaeologists, restorers, geologists and chemists conducted analyses with state-of-the-art technology, both in Mexico and the United States. These analyses determined raw material used by Mexica to elaborate pigments and agglutinants. We also identified pictorial techniques used by Tenochtitlan artists more than 500 years ago”.
The INAH archaeologist explained that among previous attempts to reconstruct chromatically the Sun Stone and Coyolxauhqui, some specialists like Robert Sieck Flandes, in 1942, and Carmen Aguilera, in 1985, based their studies on codices images, achieving interesting results.
The results presented now, however, part from using analytical methods and technological resources, proving that the palette of Tenochtitlan sculpture is more reduced that that from codices; in the future, reconstructions will have to be done based on direct observation of monoliths.
Lopez Lujan remarked that Mexica sculptors used mainly volcanic stone as basalt, andesite and tezontle, which natural hues are blackish, grayish and pinkish.
“These are the colors that dominate in pieces exposed at museums. Most sculptures have lost most of the pictorial layer, due to action of soil elements when buried, and once exhumed, to the action of weathering”.
This is why it is important to make computer chromatic reconstructions public, and be able to transmit today the visual sensations Mexica had during the Prehispanic period.
The last investigations in the field are part of Templo Mayor Project, headed by Leonardo Lopez Lujan, Maria Barajas and Fernando Carrizosa. The project has counted on with the important contributions of Jaime Torres, from the National School of Conservation, Restoration and Museography (ENCRyM) and Giacomo Chiari, from the Getty Conservation Institute, in Los Angeles.
Main results from investigations, announced Lopez Lujan, are to be published in Arqueologia Mexicana magazine and the books Monte Sagrado-Templo Mayor (Sacred Mount-Main Temple) written with Alfredo Lopez Austin, and Escultura monumental mexica (Monumental Mexica Sculpture), written with Eduardo Matos Moctezuma.
Mexico city | Leonardo Lopez Lujan | Chromatic palette of Prehispanic sculptural art | INAH | V Permanent Conferences of Archeology |
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