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The Carved Stela in Tomb 5, Suchilquitongo, Oaxaca, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Arthur G. Miller
Arthur G. Miller
Affiliation:
Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
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Abstract

This study analyzes the imagery and writing carved on a “genealogical register” found in an elaborate tomb recently discovered at the northern end of the Valley of Etla in Oaxaca. Known as Tomb 5, the elaborate mausoleum contains architecture, sculpture, and murals pertaining to Period IIIb in the Valley of Oaxaca sequence. The carved stone inserted into the tomb at a later date, during Period IV, clearly establishes lines of descent from a venerated ancestor. The carving depicts a dead lord and provides information including the year and day of his death, which are given in 52-year and 260-day cycles, as well as information about his immediate descendants, including a young son and a mature daughter. Associated texts tell not only the calendar names of these family members but also, in the case of the son and daughter, their family-lineage name and their birth-order names. The writing also gives the birth and death dates of the lord's offspring; information that indirectly reveals their ages at the time of their father's death. Image and text complement each other by giving distinct information about the family lineage of a venerated ancestor.

Type
Articles
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , Fall 1991 , pp. 215 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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