Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T01:59:35.500Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE “GREAT GODDESS” OF TEOTIHUACAN: Fiction or Reality?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2006

Zoltán Paulinyi
Zoltán Paulinyi
Affiliation:
Departamento de Teoría del Arte, Facultad de Artes, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 2100, Santiago, Chile
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A critical review of the history of research devoted to the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan shows that over the past twenty years, and in several publications, this goddess has been transformed gradually into a universal nature deity, has received the title “Great,” and has been regarded by many authorities as the principal deity of Teotihuacan. This has become accepted even though, in my judgment, the goddess was created through a highly speculative line of argument, fusing several different iconographic complexes under that name, and despite the fact that the greater part seem to have nothing to do with each other. As a consequence, the concept of this omnipotent goddess has become a serious obstacle holding back the progress of iconographic research on the Teotihuacan supernatural world. The discussion here reaches the conclusion that in place of a Great Goddess, we are able to identify at least six different gods and goddesses, several among them not yet subjected to analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2006 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Armillas, Pedro 1945 Los dioses de Teotihuacan. Anales del Instituto de Etnología Americana 6:35–41.Google Scholar
Berlo, Janet C. 1982 Artistic Specialization at Teotihuacan: The Ceramic Incense Burner. In Pre-Columbian Art History: Selected Readings, edited by Alana Cordy-Collins, pp. 83–100. Peek Publications, Palo Alto, CA.
Berlo, Janet C. 1983 The Warrior and the Butterfly: Central Mexican Ideologies of Sacred Warfare and Teotihuacan Iconography. In Text and Image in Pre-Columbian art, edited by Janet C. Berlo, pp. 79–117. BAR International Series 180. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
Berlo, Janet C. 1984 Teotihuacan Art Abroad: A Study of Metropolitan Style and Provincial Transformation in Incensario Workshop. BAR International Series 199. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
Berlo, Janet C. 1992 Icons and Ideologies: The Great Godess Reconsidered. In Art, Ideology and the City of Teotihuacan, edited by Janet C. Berlo, pp. 129–168. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Berlo, Janet C. (editor) 1992 Art, Ideology and the City of Teotihuacan. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Berrin, Kathleen (editor) 1988 Feathered Serpents and Flowering Trees: Reconstructing the Murals of Teotihuacan. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Berrin, Kathleen, and Esther Pasztory (editors) 1993 Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods. Thames and Hudson/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Caso, Alfonso 1942 El paraíso terrenal en Teotihuacan. Cuadernos Americanos 6(6):127–136.Google Scholar
Caso, Alfonso 1966 Dioses y signos teotihuacanos. In Teotihuacan: Onceava Mesa Redonda, vol. X, pp. 249–275. Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología, Mexico City.
Cowgill, George L. 1997 State and Society at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:129–161.Google Scholar
de la Fuente, Beatriz (editor) 1995 La pintura mural prehispánica en México, I, Teotihuacan, Tomo I: Catálogo. Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IIE-UNAM), Mexico City.
Furst, Peter T. 1974 Morning Glory and Mother Goddess at Tepantitla, Teotihuacan: Iconography and Analogy in Pre-Columbian Art. In Mesoamerican Archaeology: New Approaches, edited by Norman Hammond, pp. 187–215. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Headrick, Annabeth 2003 Butterfly War at Teotihuacan. In Ancient Mesoamerican Warfare, edited by M. Kathryn Brown and Travis W. Stanton, pp. 149–170. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.
Heyden, Doris 1998 Las cuevas de Teotihuacan. Arqueología Mexicana V(6):18–27.Google Scholar
Kubler, George 1962 The Art and Architecture of Ancient America. Penguin Books, Pelican History of Art, Hamondsworth.
Kubler, George 1967 The Iconography of the Art of Teotihuacan. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology 4. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Langley, James C. 1986 Symbolic Notation of Teotihuacan. BAR International Series 313. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
Langley, James C. 1993 Symbols, Signs, and Writing Systems. In Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods, edited by Kathleen Berrin and Esther Pasztory, pp. 129–139. Thames and Hudson/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
López Luján, Leonardo, Hector Neff, and Saburo Sugiyama 2002 The 9-Xi Vase: A Classic Thin Orange Vessel Found at Tenochtitlan. In Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, edited by David Carrasco, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions, pp. 219–252. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Manzanilla, Linda 1999 The Emergence of Complex Urban Societies in Central Mexico: The Case of Teotihuacan. In Archaeology in Latin America, edited by Gustavo G. Politis and Benjamín Alberti, pp. 94–129. Routledge, London.
Manzanilla, Linda 2001 Gobierno corporativo en Teotihuacan: Una revisión del concepto “palacio” aplicado a la gran urbe prehispánica. Anales de Antropología 35:157–190.Google Scholar
Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo 1990 Teotihuacan. La metropoli degli dei. Editoriale Jaca Book, Milan.
Miller, Arthur G. 1973 The Mural Painting of Teotihuacán. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Millon, Clara 1988 Great Goddess Fragment. In Feathered Serpents and Flowering Trees: Reconstructing the Murals of Teotihuacan, edited by Kathleen Berrin, pp. 226–228. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Millon, René 1988 Where Do They All Come From? The Provenance of the Wagner Murals from Teotihuacan. In Feathered Serpents and Flowering Trees: Reconstructing the Murals of Teotihuacan, edited by Kathleen Berrin, pp. 78–113. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Millon, René 1992 Teotihuacan Studies: From 1950 to 1990 and Beyond. In Art, Ideology and the City of Teotihuacan, edited by Janet C. Berlo, pp. 339–430. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Nicholson, Henry B. 1971 Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico. In Handbook of Middle American Indians. Volume 10: The Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica, Part 1, edited by Gordon Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal, pp. 395–446. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Pasztory, Esther 1973 The Gods of Teotihuacan: A Synthetic Approach in Teotihuacan Iconography. In Atti del XL Congresso Internazionale degli Americanisti, vol. 1, pp. 147–159, Rome.
Pasztory, Esther 1974 The Iconography of the Teotihuacan Tlaloc. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology 15. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Pasztory, Esther 1976 The Murals of Tepantitla, Teotihuacan. Garland Publishing, New York.
Pasztory, Esther 1988a A Reinterpretation of Teotihuacan and Its Mural Painting Tradition. In Feathered Serpents and Flowering Trees: Reconstructing the Murals of Teotihuacan, edited by Kathleen Berrin, pp. 45–77. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Pasztory, Esther 1988b The Aztec Tlaloc: God of Antiquity. In Smoke and Mist: Mesoamerican Studies in Memory of Thelma Sullivan, edited by J. Kathryn Josserand and Karen Dakin, pp. 289–327. BAR International Series 402. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
Pasztory, Esther 1992 Abstraction and the Rise of a Utopian State at Teotihuacan. In Art, Ideology and the City of Teotihuacan, edited by Janet C. Berlo, pp. 281–320. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Pasztory, Esther 1993 Teotihuacan Unmasked: A View through Art. In Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods, edited by Kathleen Berrin and Esther Pasztory, pp. 43–63. Thames and Hudson/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Pasztory, Esther 1997 Teotihuacan: An Experiment in Living. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Paulinyi, Zoltán 1995 El pájaro del Dios Mariposa de Teotihuacan: Análisis iconográfico a partir de una vasija de Tiquisate, Guatemala. Boletín del Museo Chileno del Arte Precolombino 6:71–110.Google Scholar
Séjourné, Laurette 1957 Pensamiento y religión en el México antiguo. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City.
Séjourné, Laurette 1962 Interpretación de un jeroglífico teotihuacano. Cuadernos Americanos 124(5):137–158.Google Scholar
Séjourné, Laurette 1966 Arquitectura y pintura en Teotihuacan. Siglo XXI Editores, Mexico City.
Sugiyama, Saburo 1998 Archaeology and Iconography of Teotihuacan Censers: Official Military Emblems Originated from the Ciudadela. Teotihuacan Notes no. 1–2. Available online at http://archaeology.la.asu.edu/teo.
Taube, Karl 1983 The Teotihuacan Spider Woman. Journal of Latin American Lore 9(2):107–189.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl 2000 The Turquoise Hearth: Fire, Self Sacrifice, and the Central Mexican Cult of War. In Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, edited by David Carrasco, Lindsay Jones, and Scott Sessions, pp. 269–340. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Taube, Karl 2001 Teotihuacan: Religion and Deities. In Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia, edited by Susan Toby Evans and David L. Webster, pp. 731–734. Garland Publishing, New York.
Toscano, Salvador 1952 Arte precolombino de México y de la América Central, 2d ed. IIE-UNAM, Mexico City.
Villagra Caleti, Agustín 1971 Mural Painting in Central Mexico. In Handbook of Middle American Indians. Volume 10: The Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica, Part 1, edited by Gordon. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal, pp. 135–156. University of Texas Press, Austin.
von Winning, Hasso 1979 Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America. Harry N. Abrams, New York.
von Winning, Hasso 1987 La iconografía de Teotihuacan: Los dioses y los signos, 2 vols. IIE-UNAM, Mexico City.