[Aztlan] Tajín Ballcourt iconography

[Steffen Haurholm-Larsen]

Dear all,

 

At the moment I am doing a broad study on El Tajín, dealing with all aspects
of the city, naturally including the ballgame and its symbolic connotations
and iconography. After having read up on all that has been written about El
Tajín ever since José García Payón started working at the site in the
1940ies, I feel that I have a good overview of it. 

However, I came across one article by Carmen Cook de Leonard in the book
Archaeoastronomy in Pre-Columbian America which interprets certain aspects
of the relieves of the South Ballcourt as conveying very specific
information about Venus as morning and evening star and about the measuring
of its passing across the sky. I haven’t been able to find any mention of
that hypothesis since Cook de Leonard put it forward in 1975 and I was
wondering if anybody knows whether consensus has been established around it
or if anybody has an opinion about it.    

 

Best regards, Steffen Haurholm-Larsen.