Massive 500-year-old serpent sculpture is revealed when earthquake shakes Mexico City
A colossal Aztec snake head sculpture emerged from the ground in Mexico City during an earthquake in September 2022, officials said.
The stone sculpture, which weighs 1.2 tons, was found in the disturbed soil about 15 feet below a local university.
Archaeologists carefully extracted the artifact from beneath the school, and have been analyzing it over the course of the past year, according to an Oct. 10 news release from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
The sculpture, which is believed to be around 500 years old, originates from the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan on top of which Mexico City was built.
The inhabitants of Tenochtitlan held serpents in high regard and often depicted them in art, according to research from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Serpents had multiple connotations and inspired sky and earth imagery alike,” according to the museum. “Above all, they were fertility symbols, probably suggested by their terrestrial habitat and periodic skin shedding.”
Around the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the 16th century, hundreds of serpent sculptures were believed to have formed a wall around an Aztec temple in Tenochtitlan.
The city was conquered by Spanish invaders led by Hernan Cortes in 1521, according to The British Museum.
Despite being underground for about half a millennium, the newfound sculpture is well-preserved, officials said. A layer of mud caked onto the sculpture is credited with protecting its painted surfaces. Traces of black, white, red, blue and ochre were found on about 80% of the sculpture.
With the assistance of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, a humidity chamber was created to encase the sculpture, where conservation work is being carried out, officials said.
The goal is for the snake head to be drained of the moisture that accumulated on it during its centuries underground. If this process is carried out too quickly, the sculpture can lose color or even crack.
It will remain in the climate-controlled humidity chamber until early 2024, officials said.
Google Translate was used to translate a news release from INAH.
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