The Cascajal Block: Iconographic Motivations, Part 3

 

David F. Mora-Marín
davidmm@unc.edu
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill

10/25/24

This is a continuation of the sub-series begun with Note 26 (Mora-Marín 2022) and Note 33 (Mora-Marín 2023). These two installments, combined, outlined possible iconographic motivations for the nine most frequent signs on the Cascajal Block (Rodríguez et al. 2006a, 2006b). My original manuscript (initially Mora-Marín 2006, revised as Mora-Marín 2010) on this topic will once again serve as the basis for this second installment, though this note also incorporates scholarship that has become available since then (e.g. Magni 2012; Carrasco and Englehardt 2015; Mora-Marín 2019, 2020, 2024).

 

The methodology I established in that manuscript, and reproduced in my Notes 26 and 33, is repeated here in full:

 

  1. Use Joralemon’s (1971) motif catalog to identify signs in the Cascajal signary, a task not attempted in Rodríguez et al. (2006a), and only selectively in Rodríguez and Ortiz (2007), who provide Joralemon numbers for CS6, CS16, and CS1/12/27.
  2. Restrict comparisons to Early and Middle Preclassic Olmec-style art to the extent that is possible, and avoid comparisons with much later writing and artistic traditions as much as possible.
  3. Include iconographic sources for such motifs to determine whether the identification is plausible, whenever Joralemon’s gloss or description of the motif is not sufficient or available.
  4. Check against the identifications proposed in Rodríguez et al. (2006a), Justeson (2006, 2012), Ortiz et al. (2007), Rodríguez and Ortiz (2007), Anderson (2007), Mora-Marín (2009), Freidel and Reilly (2010), Magni (2012[2008]), and Carrasco and Englehardt (2015).

 

This third installments considers five more signs that occur three times within the Cascajal Block text (Figure 1); more specifically, I consider signs CS9, CS15, CS16, CS26, and CS28 (Figure 2) (Mora-Marín 2020).

 

Figure 1

 

Figure 2

 

I begin then with CS9. Table 1 presents  the relevant descriptions and identifications by a variety of authors. Figure 3 presents the comparison I offered in Mora-Marín (2010); a similar comparison is provided in Mora-Marín (2020a:220, 2020b:Suppl. Figures 3 and 4), where I suggest CS2 and CS9 represented the same iconographic referent, a design depicting a bag or bundle with a tripartite top. Indeed, Mora-Marín (2009:404) had already suggested, based on a structural analysis, that the two signs were functioning as one in the inscription. The comparison offered in Figure 3 only partially meets the criteria outlined above: it compares CS9 (Figure 3a) and CS2 (Figure 3b) to a depiction of an iconographic motif present on a Middle Preclassic celt from the Chalcatzingo area (Figure 3c), but it also compares them to a depiction of an iconographic motif from the Late Preclassic San Bartolo murals from the Maya region (Figure 3d). The Mayan motif from San Bartolo resembles what would be obtained if one blended CS2 and CS9 into a single motif. While it posdates the Cascajal Block by several centuries, the structural analysis reported on in Mora-Marín (2020:220, 2009:404) suggests CS2 and CS9 have the same value or function; adding to this their general graphic similarity, and the possibility that they depict the same object is strengthened. CS9 and the San Bartolo motif share a horizontal band in between the tripartite top element and the oblong bottom element.

 

Table 1

 

Figure 3

 

This paper regards CS15 (Table 2) to be a possible depiction of a plant or an insect, but no iconographic parallels appear convincing so far, including no close matches in Joralemon (1971).  This author agrees with Justeson (2006) in identifying CS27 as a misdrawn instance of CS15, which means there are three cases of CS15 (Figure 4).

 

Table 2

 

Figure 4

 

Table 3 provides a summary of proposals regarding CS16. This paper regards CS16 (Figure 5) to correspond to Joralemon’s Motif 73, a depiction of a “knuckleduster” (Figure 6); this is what other scholars have.

 

Table 3

 

Figure 5

 

Figure 6

 

Table 4  provides a summary of proposals regarding CS26. This paper regards this sign (Figure 7) to be a depiction of the Crossed-bands motif (Joralemon’s Motif 99) that is commonly present in juxtaposed to the U-shaped motif on the brows or foreheads of certain deities and humans (Figure 8), but paired in other contexts as well, such as the objects held by the Young Lord (or Slim) figurine (Justeson 2006).

 

Table 4

 

Figure 7

 

Figure 8

 

Table 5 provides a summary of proposals regarding CS28, a sign with globular shape with three stubs on the bottom. I propose its identification with Joralemon’s Motif 36 (Paw-wing motif) or 39 (Three-toed Paw); specifically, I regard CS28 (Figures 9a–c) to be a depiction of a mammalian paw with at least three toes. The fact that only three toes are present may be due to stylistic simplification also evident in some iconographic examples (Figure 9d), and not necessarily a taxonomic trait that could lead to the identification of a particular species. This PAW sign can be identified as a simplified version of the paws present on the animal skin worn by the Atlihuayan clay figurine (Figure 9e), and given its occurrence, on two out of its three instances, in close proximity or directly adjacent to CS6 (Figures 9a–b), the ANIMAL.SKIN sign, this paper proposes that the two constitute another iconographic pairing of the sort identified by Justeson (2010). This iconographic pairing pattern also supports the reading format proposed in Mora-Marín (2009): at position 48 one finds the ANIMAL.SKIN sign, unfinished due to the scribe running out of room on the margin, and deciding to continue at position 49 on the next column.

 

Table 5

 

Figure 9

 

The evidence presented in this note, some of it already noted in Mora-Marín (2020, 2019, 2024), is based on an unpublished paper (Mora-Marín 2010) that has been cited in a few works (Anderson 2007; Freidel and Reilly 2010; Carrasco and Englehardt 2015). This evidence further supports the consistency of the Cascajal signary, from a stylistic-iconographic standpoint, with contemporary Olmec art and subsequent Epi-Olmec writing, and offers new insights into some iconographic identifications for such signs, as well as supports for identifications proposed by others. Future installments will provide similar assessments for the remaining signs in the Cascajal signary.

 

References

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