Censer Symbolism and the State Polity in Teotihuacán

Preliminary Comments

We do not know exactly when the production of this particular censer type began. The stratigraphy of the workshop does not provide precise information on its absolute chronology, because the layers with censer materials were shallow and several Teotihuacán floors on which the materials were found had been seriously disturbed. The only other kinds of datable ceramic materials discovered in this area and other sections of the city, where censer materials were found in association with them, suggest that they were in use by the Late Tlamimilolpa phase (4^th century), and were continuously produced until the Metepec phase (6^th century) (e.g., Berlo, 1984:45; Múnera, 1985).

Within the nucleus of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, no pieces related to theater-type censers were found; this stands in sharp contrast to their rather sudden, significant presence outside the pyramid in the palace area. This means that censer production post-dated the Feathered Serpent Pyramid which is believed to correspond to the beginning of the Early Tlamimilolpa phase. In the North Palace, censer ornaments were found in grave contexts corresponding to the last architectural level, according to a brief preliminary report by excavators (e.g., Jarquín and Martínez, 1982:117). In addition, excavations conducted by the Feathered Serpent Pyramid project in 1988-89 uncovered hundreds of "adornos" on the upper (latest) floor on the east side of the main pyramid. These data confirm the temporal assessment of the censer workshop mentioned above.

As shown in the first catalog, a wide variety of molds and applications ("adornos") recovered at this central precinct in the city included almost all known iconographic elements for the theater-type censers in Teotihuacán. This may imply that the location was a major workshop controlled by the state that officially produced and distributed censers city-wide, and beyond. Elites living in the Ciudadela may have been actively engaged in typical censer production, or else they might have overseen and controlled manufacture. In fact, many molds and "adornos" were also found in the North Palace and an opened space behind the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, indicating that these most complex ritual ceramic objects had been mass-produced with molds, both at the workshop and at the largest ritual precinct in Teotihuacán for certain later periods.

The aforementioned assertion may make sense when one closely examines the iconography of the symbolism involved and the functions of the Ciudadela suggested by recent research. The Ciudadela was extensively excavated in 1980-82, and the Feathered Serpent Pyramid was intensively, and systematically, explored in 1988-89 (e.g., Cabrera et al., 1982; Cabrera, Sugiyama, and Cowgill, 1991). As a consequence, I identified the Ciudadela as a ritual space in which militarism, human sacrifice, and rulership of the Teotihuacán state were symbolically proclaimed through the events associated with the erection of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid (FSP) around 200 A.D. (Sugiyama, 1992; 2001). With the study I conducted with the FAMSI grant, I further argue that a wide range of iconographic elements used for the censer complex emerged after the erection of the pyramid, following a cultural tradition of state symbolism originated at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid (Sugiyama, 1998), and that the production of theater-type censers seems to have been one of the socio-political activities strongly associated with the military institution. After the 4^th century, censers with martial features were widely distributed probably by the state network in the city and abroad, particularly in the Tiquisate region, from which many Teotihuacán-type censers were recovered. The involvement of the state in production is also suggested by the fact that the specific form and composition of the Teotihuacán censers abruptly disappeared with the collapse of the state, although certain ideological features even survived in post-Teotihuacán periods.

These censers may not have conveyed merely general meanings of militarism. The abundant, greatly varied "adornos" attached to the censers may have communicated specific meanings in complicated ways. The fact that there are no two censers combining identical elements, among the censers found to date, suggest that artisans composed them to endow each censer with a specific meaning, as Berlo (1984) pointed out. Information from the workshop included in the catalog supports this assertion; as previously mentioned, almost all elements from known censers can be found at the workshop. The most common elements at the workshop (that is, groups consisting of more than 100 pieces of applications or molds) in the "Phytomorphic" category are the flower with four petals, cotton (?), water lily, and various other flowers; in the "Zoomorphic" corpus, butterfly, bird, bivalve shell, and spiral shell; in "Anthropomorphic" representations, Storm God, masks, and nose pendants; and then in the category of "Representations and Symbols," feathers, circles, scrolls, Manta complex, earspools, arrows, shields or lateral plaques, ropes or knot, bundles, knives, water or drop, and Reptile’s Eyes. We know that some of them, and others in smaller quantities, became glyphs in post-Teotihuacán periods. The excavation contexts suggest that, although censers appear to have been widely distributed and used on household levels and in grave contexts, production of censers was rather restricted to certain social groups, some of whom worked in this closed workshop controlling a symbolic notational system with almost any kind of combination of codified "adornos".

The censer imagery that emerged at this particular location may be better understood in this social, and historical context. The data obtained with the FAMSI grant should be further explored systematically, and analytically, to better understand more specific meanings and functions, as well as the politico-religious structure of the state.

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