MEXICO CITY, MEXICO—Live Science reports that a collection of 15 stone figurines carved in the Mezcala style has been discovered in a stone chest at Templo Mayor, the temple complex at the site of the city of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. The sculptures vary in size, with the largest standing about 12 inches tall. Archaeologist Leonardo López Luján of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said that the figurines may have already been 1,000 years old when the Aztecs conquered the Mezcala people of southwestern Mexico during the reign of Moctezuma Ilhuicamina, between A.D. 1440 and 1469. “Presumably they served as cult effigies, which [the Aztecs] appropriated as booty of war,” he explained. Paint had been added to one of the figurines, perhaps to allude to Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain, he added. The chest also contained two rattlesnake-shaped earrings, more than 180 green stone beads, snails, shells, and marine corals. López Luján suggests that temple priests stored these valuable symbols in the stone case for safekeeping. To read about thousands of well-preserved wooden artifacts unearthed at the foot of the Templo Mayor, go to "Aztec Offerings," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2022.
