A Corpus of Cotzumalhuapa-Style Sculpture, Guatemala

Documentation of Newly-Discovered Sculptures

Archaeological sites in the Cotzumalhuapa Nuclear Zone are seriously threatened by intensive agriculture and especially by the urban growth of the modern city of Santa Lucía Cotzumalhuapa. In 1996, a large portion of the El Baúl site’s major architectural complex was subjected to urbanization. Major buildings suffered considerable damage, and numerous sculptures came to light as a result of this process. In 1996-1997, the author co-directed a rescue project at this site, in collaboration with Sonia Medrano, with partial financing from the National Geographic Society. Further work was carried out during March and April of 1998.

Recent research at El Baúl is highly relevant for the Corpus of Cotzumalhuapa-style Sculpture project, because it has allowed us to document several monuments within their proper archeological context. Twelve new monuments have come to light during excavations, including truly outstanding pieces. Monument 63 is a horizontally-tenoned human bust wearing a huge tasseled headdress, similar to Pantaleón Monument 1 and El Baúl Monument 12.  The latter were removed from the Great Precinct of El Baúl in the late nineteenth century, as suggested by unpublished documents recently analyzed by the author (Chinchilla, 1996b). Archaeological documentation of Monument 63 within a sunken court in the same part of the site provides confirmation for the provenance of these sculptures. A radiocarbon date from the court’s floor yielded a calibrated date of A.D. 625 (676) 862, which is earlier or contemporary with the construction of this architectural complex and the setting of its sculptures. The latter include monuments 46, 47, 61, 62, 65 and 66, in addition to Monument 63.  This dating is consistent with the author’s earlier proposals, based on dates that were not specifically associated with monuments (Chinchilla, 1996a:140-184).

Monument 69 is an enormous boulder carved with the figure a composite creature that combines the features of jaguar and iguana. Excavations showed that this important sculpture was set by the side of a 17-meter wide causeway that led south from El Baúl towards El Castillo, and by the edge of the Santiago river gorge. The foundations of a large bridge that ran across the river were also identified. Interestingly, Monument 69 was associated with the first construction stage of the causeway, and was completely buried during the second construction stage, possibly because its huge size made it impossible to raise. Instead, a new sculpture carved with the same creature (Monument 54) was placed directly above Monument 69.  Thus, it seems that a jaguar-iguana was required to guard the entrance of the site at this particular place (Chinchilla, 1997b).

These examples illustrate the importance of archaeological documentation. A special effort is being made to recover information on the provenance of other sculptures from analysis of published and unpublished reports and oral interviews with local residents. This method has already allowed a reconstruction of the origins of monuments in the collections gathered in the nineteenth century at Ingenio Pantaleón and the Ethnographic Museum of Berlin, Germany (Chinchilla, 1996b; 1996c).

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