| Object Name: | Altar dedicated to the coming of rain |
|
|---|---|---|
| Creation Date: | 1000 BC - 200 BC | |
| Culture: | Olmec | |
| Site: | Chalcatzingo | |
| Material: | ||
| Repository: | ||
| Image source: | © Dr. Manuel Aguilar | |
| This stone presents man made ground cup-marks or pits. It can suggest that the pits and cup-marks on the stone were used for collecting rain and receiving dedicatory water in connection with propitiatory rites. Not only were the pits important in the context of local religious activity, but the marking of the pits were undoubtely a ritual undertaking, no less significant than the making of the cup-marks. It is conceivable that cup-marks and pits were in some way connected with the observance of an ancestral reverence for earth and caves. The mere action of making a cup-mark, or of boring a deeper hole in the stone , might have been regarded as a symbolic penetration of the earth, where life itself was probably thought to originate and where the ancestors dwelt. | ||
