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Constituting Animacy and Community in a Terminal Formative Bundled Offering from the Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2017

Jeffrey S. Brzezinski
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder, 1350 Pleasant St, 233 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA Email: jeffrey.brzezinski@colorado.edu
Arthur A. Joyce
Affiliation:
Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder, 1350 Pleasant St, 233 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA Email: arthur.joyce@colorado.edu
Sarah B. Barber
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Boulevard, Orlando, FL 32816-1361, USA Email: sarah.barber@ucf.edu

Abstract

In this paper, we examine a Terminal Formative-period (150 bc–ad 250) bundled offering from the site of Cerro de la Virgen, located on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. The offering was emplaced below a prominent public building in the site's ceremonial centre and contained five stone objects, including a rain deity mask, a fragment of a second mask, a figurine of a deceased ancestor and two miniature table altars, as well as nine small ceramic vessels. Considered together as a ‘sacred bundle’, the stone objects collectively reference agricultural fertility, rulership and ancestor veneration, which we interpret to be a metaphorical invocation of a fundamental tenet of prehispanic Mesoamerican religious belief—the sacred covenant. The offering also played an active part in founding the community of Cerro de la Virgen, connecting its residents with the divine, the ancestors and the outside world and constituting differences in status among its members.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2017 

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