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Lapidary Craft Specialization at Teotihuacan: Implications for Community Structure at 33:S3W1 and Economic Organization in the City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Randolph J. Widmer
Randolph J. Widmer
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5882, USA
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Abstract

Excavations in the Classic Period apartment compound, site 33:S3W1, in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexico, have revealed the existence of two lapidary workshops. These workshops were spatially discrete and separate from domestic quarters and were located on the periphery of the compound, but still inside it, in open courtyard areas with packed earth surfaces. A number of stone grinding tools and work surfaces initially identified these areas as lapidary workshops. This assessment was confirmed by microartifact analysis of associated soil samples which indicate that a number of different raw material classes were used in the lapidary production. All of these materials, with the exception of basalt, are imported from outside of the valley of Mexico. Differential use of raw materials is present and appears to be based on the value of the commodity. Basalt and slate are the most common materials used, with greenstone and shell being the scarcest. The volume of raw material debitage is much greater than would be required for local consumption by the compound, suggesting that the lapidary artifacts were produced for exchange in the market of Teotihuacan. The scale of production, however, does not appear to be large enough to indicate that these materials were produced for long-distance exchange.

Type
Special Section: Urban Archaeology at Teotihuacan
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Spring 1991 , pp. 131 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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