La Jornada: They reinterpret the Tepantitla mural as the prelude to a great party

Teotihuacan, Méx., A new interpretation by archaeologist Jaime Delgado Rubio of the mural Tepantitladiscovered in 1942 in a crop field near the great Pyramid of the Sun of Teotihuacan, identifies scenes of preparatory activities for a great festival celebrating the abundance of corn, beans and pumpkin, which occurred in the lives of the inhabitants of that pre-Hispanic city.

The above raises a new theory that gives a 180 degree turn to what has been said until now during the 84 years of the discovery of these vestiges.

Delgado Rubio says that the three important events in the celebration are the preparations for a party that would culminate in the ascent to the water mountain, the performance of a great ball game with sticks, and the installation of an area for healers from various ethnicities.

“It is postulated that this festival of abundance was so effective as an ideological means and means of managing the ethnic diversity of the city that centuries later the Mexica took it back, giving it the name of the twenty of the etzalcualiztli,” he explained.

He added that the accidental discovery of the mural Tepantitlamade by a farmer in 1942 in a crop field near the great Pyramid of the Sun of Teotihuacan, has been the object of collective imagination and numerous specialized investigations.

The reason is that the work broke with the canons of Teotihuacan mural painting known until now, in which deities are seen in procession, sober and distant from the residents.

He added that, in the opposite direction, in Tepantitla A visibly excited rain god is seen carrying his two small children, the tlaloques, so as not to miss any detail of his party. Below you can see characters moving in all directions, some playing, others collecting fruits, swimming or singing, in an environment of rivers, mountains and crop fields. All of them outlined on an intense red background that emphasizes their postures and emotions.

“Perhaps for this reason, Alfonso Caso identified him as the The Tlalocan murala name he took from the chronicles of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, which describe a place where people who died from a disease related to water or lightning arrived, with abundant springs, frogs and ball games,” he said.

The archaeologist pointed out that since then, researchers such as Ester Pasztory, María Teresa Uriarte, Doris Heyden and Alfredo López Austin, among others, have made various interpretations of its meaning, but they agree at some point with Alfonso Caso’s initial explanation that all the scenes occur in a watery and paradisiacal underworld.

After extensive research into historical and archaeological sources, Delgado Rubio postulated his new theory.

As a result of the above, the Mexican documentary filmmaker Rafael Morales Orozco made a film that gives an account of this new interpretation, which will air next Friday at 5 p.m. on the INAH TV YouTube channels, as well as on the YouTube page Relatando Historias.