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In other cases, images from the pyramids appear
in different formats in residential compounds.
The sculpted façade of the Feathered
Serpent Pyramid, fi rst excavated by Manuel Gamio
in the 1910s, consists of a series of taludtablero
tiers, showcasing the distinctively Teotihuacan
architectural profi le, where a vertical
tablero juts over a slanted talud. In many cases,
both surfaces served as vehicles for painted imagery.
In the case of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid,
multi-ton stone serpent heads project from
the vertical tablero. The serpents’ undulating
bodies, assembled from smaller mosaic blocks,
also carry large headdresses that represent the
primordial crocodile known to the Aztecs as
FIG. 9 (left):
Large standing fi gure.
Teotihuacan, Anahuac,
Mexico. AD 500–550.
Calcite marble. H: 128 cm.
Museo Nacional de Antropología/
INAH, inv. 10-642614.
Photo: Jorge Pérez de Lara Elías,
© INAH.
Image courtesy of the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco.
FIG. 10 (above): Two
standing anthropomorphic
sculptures discovered near
the terminus of the tunnel
beneath the Ciudadela
and the Feathered
Serpent Pyramid.
Photo: Sergio Gómez Chávez.
Image courtesy of the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco.
A prime example of how imagery from the
pyramids carries through to the residential compounds
is the sculptures of the “Old Fire God”
(fi g. 6). Approximately one hundred of these
sculptures, typically carved in stone but occasionally
modeled in ceramic, all showing an old
man hunched over bearing a cylindrical brazier
on his head, have been found all over the city,
from high-status residences to low. The ensemble
of objects from the Sun Pyramid will include a
similar sculpture found at the monument’s summit
in 2013, along with other objects demonstrating
the pyramid’s close association with fi re.
ART ON VIEW