Notes on Three Foreign Artifacts from the Cerro de las Mesas Jade Cache David Mora-Marn UNC-Chapel Hill

davidmm@unc.edu Publicado en Mexicon XXX:20-22 (2008) (No lo he escaneado an, pero te enviar dos copias oficiales del nmero de la revista pronto) Several Costa Rican-style artifacts have been found at the sites of Cerro de las Mesas and Tres Zapotes in Veracruz, Mexico. Easby (1963:104, Fig. 4g) first recognized the presence of an avian axe-god pendant in the jade cache from Cerro de las Mesas (Drucker 1943:Pl. 52a), seen in Fig. 1a. Stone (1972:216) also recognized it as such, in addition to recognizing a Diqus-style (Pacific Southwest) peg-based statue, with a height of 40.5 cm, from the same cache (Drucker 1955:34-35, Plate 30), seen in Fig. 1b. Figure 1

b a a. Avian axe-god pendant from Cerro de las Mesas. Drawing by author after drawing in Easby (1963:Fig. 4g). b. Peg-based anthropomorphic statue from Cerro de las Mesas. Drawing by author after photograph in Drucker (1955:34-35, Plate 30).

Solar Valverde (2002) has suggested that the jade cache may date broadly between ca. A.D. 750-1450, but possibly to the later part of that period. Fernndez and Quintanilla (2003) date the Diqus peg-based statuary, two examples of which are shown in Figs. 2ab, to after A.D. 800.

Figure 2

b a a. Peg-based anthropomorphic statue from the Sierpe district (Diquis Delta). Height: 53.3 cm. Drawing by author after photograph in Lothrop (1963:Pl. XVII).b. Peg-based anthropomorphic statue from the Diquis Delta of Costa Rica. Height: 125.7 cm. Drawing by author after photograph in Lothrop (1963:Pl. XIII).

There is another artifact from this jade cache, seen in Figs. 3ab, that has remained unrecognized by previous authors as an artifact of Costa Rican provenience, or more precisely, Costa Rican reworking. The artifact is a jade plaque fragment (Drucker 1955:45-46, Fig. 3, Pl. 38a and 38a), and one with a complex history. It is originally a Maya jade plaque for it still retains part of a royal portrait typical of Maya jade plaque portraiture (cf. Morley and Morley 1938; Mathews 1985; Reents-Budet and Fields 1990; Fields and Reents-Budet 1991). As seen in Figs. 3cd, the remaining Maya imagery is very similar to the imagery from one of the Rio Azul jade plaques, dated to A.D. 435; in particular, the two share an almost identical skeletal mask above the rulers face, suggesting a roughly coeval date of ca. A.D. 435 for the original Maya work of the Cerro de las Mesas jade.

Figure 3

d c a. Photograph of jade plaque fragment from Cerro de las Mesas. b. Drawing of same fragment. Both photograph and drawing found in Drucker (1955:45-46, Fig. 3, Pl. 38a and 38a). c. Rotated drawing: note Maya-style imagery. d. Comparison of Maya-style imagery from Early Classic jade plaque reportedly from Rio Azul, Peten, Guatemala. Drawing by this author.

But the plaque was clearly reworked by a Costa Rican artisan with a characteristic double-bird crest or headdress, as can be discerned through a comparison with two Costa Ricanstyle axe-god pendants bearing an identical motif in Figs. 4abc. Figure 4

c a. Drawing of jade plaque fragment from Cerro de las Mesas. After Drucker (1955:46, Fig. 3, Pl. 38a). b. c.

Thus, it is possible that this plaque was originally a Maya belt plaque that traveled to Costa Rica, where it was reworked, sometime between ca. A.D. 450-800, and subsequently traveled to Cerro de las Mesas, possibly along with the Diqus-style peg-based statue, by ca. A.D. 800. This reworking could have taken place anytime before A.D. 900, the cessation limit for the jade tradition, but most likely between ca. A.D. 300-700, the period of greatest use and work of jade objects in Costa Rica (Guerrero Miranda 1998). The Cerro de las Mesas cache also bears an example of a jade pendant attested at Chaksinkin and at the Museo del Jade in Costa Rica (Snarskis 1998). This is a particularly good example of an Olmec-style jade that could have arrived to Costa Rica in post-Olmec times, although the style of the piece may be Epi-Olmec, rather than Olmec, in any case. From Tres Zapotes comes a Costa Rican-style avian axe-god, seen in Fig. 5, also from a jade cache, illustrated by Weiant (1943:Pl. 74).

Figure 5

Costa Rican-style avian axe-god from Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, Mexico. From Weiant (1943:Plate 74). To my knowledge the artifact is not described anywhere within the monograph. Nevertheless, the pendant may have been found in a burial from the Ranchito Group at the site, where most of the greenstone objects reported by Weiant were found, and judging from the scale provided in the illustration, it may be an inch wide and an inch and a half in height. It is apparent that it also bears a transverse perforation for suspension, typical of this type of Costa Rican pendant. No previous author has recognized this example as Costa Rican in style; it would be worthwhile to attempt to find it and determine from notes from the archaeological excavations where it was found, in order to try to date its deposition. In general, the present exposition pertains to the problem of exchange not just within Mesoamerica, but more broadly within Middle America. In Mora-Marn (2002) the suggestion was made that such exchange, particularly in reference to the jade exchange network between the Maya area and northern Costa Rica, may have been more systematic and influential than has been assumed to date, especially if one assumes that the Costa Rican artisans were procuring raw jadeite for their lapidary from the Middle Motagua Valley, an assumption strengthened by the recent findings of blue-green jadeite, the type of jadeite preferred by such lapidary (Seitz et al. 2001; Gendron et al. 2002; Taube et al. 2004). Recently, Mora-Marn (2005) provides significant support to this claim, in a detailed study of evidence from the Maya area relevant to such exchange, specifically of Costa Rican-style artifacts found at Chaksinkin, Copan, La Milpa, Altun Ha, and elsewhere in the area. The point for now is that some such artifacts reflect a complex social history. For example, the Maya jade from Cerro de las Mesas must have traveled to Costa Rica, where it was reworked by a Costa Rican artisan, before traveling to Cerro de las Mesas and finally being deposited in a ritual cache, in association with other artifactsMayan and Costa Ricathat evidence international exchange.

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