THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS RELEVANT TO THE ACATZINGO AND IXTIYUCAN CAVES, AND TO MC2 CAVES IN GENERAL.

Brief History of Mesoamerican Caves for Ritual Use. A description and illustration of caves found at La Venta, Chalcatzingo, and Oaxaca. How they were depicted in a niche, often imitating a zoomorphic pattern or a more geometric, quatrefoil design. A conventionalized entrance or stepped platform evolved to represent subterranean ritual space.

Mexican Cultural Survivals - Ritual Use of Caves. Broda (1989) writes about "...a striking continuity of certain elements of Indian cosmovision throughout Colonial times up to the present day." This includes a role of hidden caves in Mexico and the native shamanic use of these caves for their most secret rites and divinations.

Artistic Designs & Locative Glyphs to Illustrate MC2 Caves. Simons (1968) describes MC2 place signs (locative glyphs) and identifies subterranean voids called caves. There are two types of caves:

Ordinary caves with a natural cave entrance. In other words, a typical hole in rocky ground; an ordinary yet spacious cavity, frequently used as a place of dwelling for reptiles, animals, or people. Simons compares the mouth of this kind of cave as "a curved opening where the stones can be seen separately."

Modified caves with an artificial entrance. A distinct type of underground cavity that is identified by a stepped platform with a raised lintel; a framework design in geometric form with straight lines; an access structure decorated with a botanical motif called marsh grass. This two-stepped architectural structure, embellished with tule-grass and spikelets, signals the founding of ritual space.

Pictorial Elements Suggesting Burials or Death-related Imagery. These stepped platforms with a raised lintel have pictorial motifs suggesting mortuary practices. They include an arrow with a feather and plume. A butterfly cocoon. A turtle. A decapitated grasshopper. A stylized rib cage or human thorax. A two-dimensional human silhouette at the cave entry. A draped white cloth at the entrance to some caves; near the ends of the linen cloth are knots.

BRIEF HISTORY OF MESOAMERICAN CAVES FOR RITUAL USE

Beginning with the preClassic (Formative) Period in Mesoamerica, or over 3,000 years ago, caves have been illustrated in rock carvings (petroglyphs) and rock paintings (pictographs). Here are two examples from the Olmec culture. A carved stone monument from La yenta where a person with a high-domed headdress is emerging from a cavern with a child in her arms. A carved stone in which a person is seated within a niche. Grove (1973) describes his headdress with feathers. A hand grasps a rope along the base of the altar.

Lords of the caverns in ancient Mexico

Pictorial elements that depict caves often imitate a zoomorphic pattern. Others are more geometric in design. They are not mutually exclusive and one may have evolved from the other. Nevertheless, MC2 caves identified by a geometric pattern signal a place of ritual space. They become sacred geography, something accepted as a prominent topographic shrine "...visited and prayed to in the rituals of the people" (Vogt 1981:119). Examples are a stepped platform - an offset architectural frontage formed by right angles. Or there may be two stepped platforms, one inverted over the other. The point is, an ordinary deep cavity in the ground is not drawn this way.

See an example of this stepped design from Chalcatzingo, Morelos; Grove ( 1968). Discussing the graphic art in this extraordinary petroglyph, Stone (1995) writes, "Eyes and a nose turn the quatrefoil into the open mouth of a zoomorph, figurating the cave as a living extension of the earth. The creature's terrestrial identity is signaled by plants sprouting from the corners of the quatrefoil. The quatrefoil cave entrance is a standard fixture of Mesoamerican pictorial cave systems,..."

Adapted from Stone 1995: fig. 3-9

From Oaxaca, locative-glyphs for a mountain that includes a cave (drawings by Covarrubias 1957). Observe the stepped platform, a conventionalized doorway into the mountain. Third motif to the right, a mountain with a cleft-summit.

Here is a conventionalized motif of the earth with a stepped entrance into the underground (Codice Nuttall, Lám. 60).

Adapted from Johansson K. 1993: 75