[Aztlan] Graduate research on ochre

[SchreinerT at aol.com]

Hello Rebecca,
You might want to check out Dan Stauber's senior thesis on cinnabar. It's 
easily the best work yet done on the subject. A copy should be on file at the 
Anthropology Library at Berkeley. If not available just contact me directly. 
Vibrant red cinnabar was often applied to skeletal remains of Mesoamerican elites 
in internment rituals. Many offerings of cinnabar in burials and dedicatory 
caches are known.   Usually these are associated with precious shell and jade.

     "..... they asked Mictlan Tecutli, who was lord or leader of hell, that 
he would give them some      bone or ash of the past      dead, and upon which 
they would let blood, and from there man and woman would come out and 
multiply......" Fray      Geronimo de Mendieta 16 th century (translation by D. 
Stauber)

Stauber, Daniel
     1995  Cinnabar in Ancient Mesoamerica: Source and   Symbol. Senior 
thesis, Department of                Anthropology, University of California, 
Berkeley.

Best,

Tom Schreiner