Carolyn Dean’s article “The Trouble with (the Term) Art” emphasizes the ambiguous nature of the word “art,” especially in regards to ancient and non-Western cultures whose religious and mythological traditions are often embedded in the aesthetics of everyday objects, blurring the line between representational beauty and utility (Dean 2006: 25-32). The Codex Borgia can be seen as one such example of this phenomenon. The Borgia likely originated from the Valley of Puebla, namely the cities of Cholula or Tlaxcala, which became a major trade route in the Postclassic Period and thus, the text was probably written as a disseminating text that would allow various cultural and ethnic peoples living in the region to understand one body of beliefs through
…show more content…
Deer were often utilized in Mesoamerican artwork as a stand-in for humans, most especially in images of sacrificial heart extraction (such as in the Wagner Murals, which utilizes coyotes, or pumas, extracting a deer’s heart as a visual metaphor for sacrifice). Deer are likely seen as a symbol of sacrifice due to their being hunted, which plays out a type of human-animal warfare; a god of hunting is found in the second quadrant. It is possible that animals were also sacrificed, as various objects have been found with bones as part of sacrificial offerings (see La Venta Offering 4), some of which are depicted as personified in the Borgia, such as flints. The human-animal corollary is most obvious in this deer being rendered with a visible penis. Again, this hints at the ubiquity of seeing the world and its creatures and objects through the lens of sacrifice, as a necessity to the forward propulsion of time within the 52-year cycle. But this deer is not undergoing sacrifice, so much as indicating the ritual, and temporal, significance of sacrifice, as its body is covered in all twenty day signs, which are linked to the 260-day ceremonial calendar (“tonalpohualli”), rather than the 365-day solar one. These also indicate the ubiquity of sacrifice, illustrating deities, animals, and …show more content…
3) with three deities, two of which are performing self-sacrifice through bloodletting, and an axis mundi in the form of a world tree and water portal. The deity on the left of the tree is Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl without his mask, as indicated by the wind jewel as the cross-section of a conch, spiney headdress, and black skin. The deity on the right is likely a Macuiltonaleque (“5 Souls”) deity of excess due to the handprint visible on his face. Underneath the quadrant are two more day signs, Water (“Atl”) and Dog (“Itzcuintli”). Dog is a northern sign, as is wind, indicating that it might symbolize Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl’s presence in the scene, while water is an eastern sign, which may give a hint to which Macuiltonaleque is depicted. Both of these deities are using bloodletters to pour their blood onto the world tree, which seems to be growing from another representation of the Earth Monster, as indicated by his jade decorations and splayed legs (Taube 2004: 144). In this way, their sacrifice is maintaining the axis mundi, the centrality of the universe, and allowing it to grow into other vertical realms, making the water portal behind the tree (its patterns mirror that of the water from quadrant two) a point of contact with all planes of existence, as is accessed by rulers and shamans in the aforementioned altar and mural
Deer were often utilized in Mesoamerican artwork as a stand-in for humans, most especially in images of sacrificial heart extraction (such as in the Wagner Murals, which utilizes coyotes, or pumas, extracting a deer’s heart as a visual metaphor for sacrifice). Deer are likely seen as a symbol of sacrifice due to their being hunted, which plays out a type of human-animal warfare; a god of hunting is found in the second quadrant. It is possible that animals were also sacrificed, as various objects have been found with bones as part of sacrificial offerings (see La Venta Offering 4), some of which are depicted as personified in the Borgia, such as flints. The human-animal corollary is most obvious in this deer being rendered with a visible penis. Again, this hints at the ubiquity of seeing the world and its creatures and objects through the lens of sacrifice, as a necessity to the forward propulsion of time within the 52-year cycle. But this deer is not undergoing sacrifice, so much as indicating the ritual, and temporal, significance of sacrifice, as its body is covered in all twenty day signs, which are linked to the 260-day ceremonial calendar (“tonalpohualli”), rather than the 365-day solar one. These also indicate the ubiquity of sacrifice, illustrating deities, animals, and …show more content…
3) with three deities, two of which are performing self-sacrifice through bloodletting, and an axis mundi in the form of a world tree and water portal. The deity on the left of the tree is Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl without his mask, as indicated by the wind jewel as the cross-section of a conch, spiney headdress, and black skin. The deity on the right is likely a Macuiltonaleque (“5 Souls”) deity of excess due to the handprint visible on his face. Underneath the quadrant are two more day signs, Water (“Atl”) and Dog (“Itzcuintli”). Dog is a northern sign, as is wind, indicating that it might symbolize Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl’s presence in the scene, while water is an eastern sign, which may give a hint to which Macuiltonaleque is depicted. Both of these deities are using bloodletters to pour their blood onto the world tree, which seems to be growing from another representation of the Earth Monster, as indicated by his jade decorations and splayed legs (Taube 2004: 144). In this way, their sacrifice is maintaining the axis mundi, the centrality of the universe, and allowing it to grow into other vertical realms, making the water portal behind the tree (its patterns mirror that of the water from quadrant two) a point of contact with all planes of existence, as is accessed by rulers and shamans in the aforementioned altar and mural