Archaeologists discover rare scorpion-shaped mound likely used for solar observation

A 1,400-year-old scorpion-shaped effigy mound discovered successful the Tehuacán Valley successful the authorities of Puebla mightiness person served arsenic an astronomical observatory, researchers say.

The discovery, disclosed successful the University of Cambridge’s Ancient Mesoamerica journal, has been described arsenic “unprecedented.” Effigy mounds — prehistoric earthen mounds shaped similar an animal, tone oregon different fig — are communal successful the midwestern United States, but highly uncommon successful Mesoamerica.

Archaeologists came crossed the mound and plaza analyzable successful 2004 portion conducting a survey to papers the prehistoric canal systems successful the cardinal information of the Tehuacán Valley, astir 160 miles southeast of Mexico City. 

The scorpion-shaped mound is strategically placed successful the halfway of the largest preserved prehistoric irrigation strategy successful Mesoamerica, comprising astir 100 quadrate kilometers of canals that person functioned continuously for much than 4,000 years.

Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which collaborated connected the research, said successful a property release that, based connected the grounds gathered, the tract appears to person been “part of a civic/ceremonial analyzable perchance utilized for astronomical observation.”

Researchers surmise that the predisposition of the scorpion-shaped operation allowed the past inhabitants of the Tehuacán Valley to observe precisely erstwhile the prima roseate implicit circumstantial points of the mound during the solstices, enabling them to optimize their crops successful 1 of Mexico’s driest regions.

If it was utilized for star observation, researchers said it could supply “an penetration into the integration of calendrical ritual with the surrounding analyzable strategy of fields and irrigation canals.”  

The scorpion mound is 62.5 meters (205 feet) long, its body, caput and pincers extending successful an east-northeast orientation. It is 13.2 meters (43 feet) wide by 80 centimeters (31 inches) precocious and the abstraction betwixt the pincers is 22.1 meters (72.5 feet).

In Mesoamerican cosmogony, the scorpion was a salient celestial deity associated with Venus, the greeting star, which successful crook was linked to Tláloc and Quetzalcóatl, deities of rainfall and wind, respectively.

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Also uncovered astatine the tract — wrong the process and stinger of the scorpion — were ample quantities of ceramics, including surface-decorated and polychromes, indicating a Late Classic and Postclassic occupation.

The find of the ceramics not lone revealed the mound’s age, but besides hinted astatine its societal and economical significance.

The ceramic diverseness — the materials correspond to ceramics from Cholula, the Mixteca portion of Oaxaca and the Gulf of Mexico — suggests the tract was a cardinal portion of the valley’s commercialized and societal networks with the main powerfulness centers of Mesoamerica.

A modern offering was recovered connected apical of the head, according to INAH. The offering consisted of 2 airy and acheronian brownish tripod vessels containing baccy and chili peppers, suggesting that the tract continues to beryllium portion of the taste practices of the present-day population. 

With reports from Archaeology News and El Sol de Puebla