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Geologic Notes on the Idolo de Coatlichán

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert F. Heizer
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, California, December, 1962
Howel Williams
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, California, December, 1962

Abstract

The largest sculptured monument in Mexico is the unfinished Idolo de Coatlichán, which weighs 197 metric tons and lies in the bottom of a barranco near Texcoco, where it was abandoned by its makers. The Idolo is made of a huge boulder of andesite, which is the same material from which the Diosa de Agua (also stylistically related), found at Teotihuacán, was carved. A tentative attempt is made to compute the number of workers required to transport the finished monument.

Type
Facts and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1963

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