Chacmool in a sentence

Interpretations Chacmool inside the Castillo pyramid of Chichen Itza The meaning of the chacmool figures varied across time depending upon the geographical and cultural context.

Miller 1985, p. 9. The chacmools at Chichen Itza were found in a combination of chacmool, throne and serpent column; this chacmool-throne-serpent complex was associated with rulership during the Early Postclassic period.

The positioning and context of the chacmool form do have antecedents in Classic Maya art and art historian Mary Ellen Miller has argued that the chacmool developed out of Classic period Maya imagery.

A chacmool from Costa Rica was dated by the excavators to approximately AD 1000.

Associations between the rain god, war and human sacrifice may have continued into the Postclassic period as demonstrated by the chacmool within the Castillo at Chichen Itza, which bears small images of the Maya rain god Chaac on its ear ornaments.

Form The chacmool is a distinctive form of Mesoamerican sculpture representing a reclining figure with its head facing 90 degrees from the front, leaning on its elbows and supporting a bowl or a disk upon its chest.

However, Tula and Chichen Itza may have developed simultaneously with rapid communication of the chacmool form from one city to the other.

Miller 1985, p. 14. Miller has proposed that the chacmool developed out of Classic Maya iconography and underwent a transition into three dimensional sculpture at Chichen Itza, perhaps spurred by the influence of central Mexican sculptural forms.

Miller 1985, p. 14. The wider variety of chacmool forms at Chichen Itza has also been used to support the development of the form there; no two possess identical form, dress and proportions.

Miller 1985, p. 7. The 19th century discovery of chacmools in both central Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula helped to promote the idea of a Toltec empire but the chacmool sculptures may have had their origin in the Maya region.

Miller 1985, p. 8. No central Mexican chacmool has been found that clearly predates the Chichen Itza examples.

Spanish observers reported the great quantity of human sacrifices during important ceremonies at the Great Temple and the chacmool was probably used during these rituals to symbolise the sacrificed captives as well as receive their blood.

The chacmool found two blocks south of the temple was sculpted with three images of the deity.

The fully polychrome chacmool found in situ in the Great Temple was associated with Tlaloc by its placement on the Tlaloc half of the double pyramid.

The Quiriguá chacmool most likely dated to the Postclassic period and is stylistically similar to those of Tula rather than Chichen Itza.

The second chacmool was excavated in the sacred precinct.

The second is that the chacmool was a cuauhxicalli to receive blood and human hearts; this use is particularly relevant to the Aztecs, who used a cuauhxicalli bowl in place of the usual disc-altar.

These included an elaborate relief image of Tlaloc amongst aquatic symbols on the underside, one on the bowl that the figure grips and the last is the Tlaloc mask with characteristic goggles and fangs that is worn by the chacmool.