Sacred Monster! A Zapotec Bat-God.

Sacred Monster! A Zapotec Bat-God.

PRE-COLUMBIAN BAT GOD TERRACOTTA FIGURE [MDL206.700.00]

4.75" (12 cm) high x 2.5” (6.3 cm) wide x 1.25” (3.1 cm) depth.

Zapotec, Monte Alban area, Mexico from the Oaxaca Valley.

400 A.D - 600 A.D. (city of Monte Alban Phase 3 200 A.D-900 A.D.)

Mold-made terracotta standing figure of the Zapotec Bat God. 

Perforated eyes, belted loincloth, crest atop head, moderately concave back.

This piece traces its provenance to the prestigious Sotheby Parke Bernet NYC Galleries. Listed in auction catalog PB84 Sale Number 523, December 7^th, 1976 “Pre-Columbian, African, Oceanic and American Indian Ethnographic Art and Antiquities. Various owners including property from the private collection of Helen S. Wilbur”. Listed as “Item 41. Zapotec Terra Cotta Figure of the Bat God, C./400-600 A.D. 1976.”

The Zapotecs of the Oaxaca Valleys area of what is now southern Mexico got their start around 700 B.C. A little afterwards a large settlement called Monte Alban was constructed above the valleys. The Zapotec called themselves “the cloud people”. There are still a few hundred-thousand speakers of various Zapotec dialects.

A little (not yet fully cited) background on this little beast. It’s a bat. Although, many times Zapotec and Mayan jaguars turn out to be bats. But since there are indications of blood and sacrificial themes (see below) we’re calling this a bat. Like 95% sure. Similar items include holes and mouthpieces so the figure could be used as a whistle—this one is not a whistle. Extremely similar to Zapotec funerary urns—both there’s no bowl or urn on its back.

WHERE

The Mesoamerican bat god entity took a few different forms. Of interest to this piece is the bat god Camazotz (cama-death, zotz-bat in the K’iche’ language). Camazotz is the god of night, death and sacrifice. Kʼicheʼ (or Quiché) is a Maya language of Guatemala that to this day the second most widely used language in Guatemala after Spanish. According to Sotheby’s Parke Bernet Gallery this piece originates a little farther north, from the Monte Alban area (six miles from modern-day Oaxaca City) of the Oaxaca Central Valleys region.

SACRIFICE

Although a Zapotec god, this piece shows later Mayan glyph on its chest denoting “blood” in the stylized form of a blood droplet. On either side of the mouth are glyphs that may denote the heart glyph, meaning “sacrifice”, in particular sacrifice via decapitation and/or the cutting of the victim and the removal of the still beating heart. In the Oaxaca Valley area of southern Mexico bats are found on Zapotec funerary urns [Caso & Bernal 1952: 67-68]. Bats of the divine/sacrificial kind are commonly portrayed with facial designs denoting sacrifice on their cheeks and/or temples [Thompson 182].

THE ONE TRUE BAT GOD CAMAZOTZ?

One popular legend has Camazotz tricking two hero brothers into a journey through the underworld. While hiding, one brother sticks out his head which is immediately ripped off by Camazotz and taken to be used in the “ball game” of the gods. Real humans (generally prisoners of war) were forced to play this ball game, with the losers being sacrificed and decapitated. Although this bat may have been a different bat than Camazotz.

NOT ALWAYS CAMAZOTZ!

Early research led to any and every bat being identified as a death-bat-god, whereas recent research suggests that bats can symbolize: messengers (similar to winged Mercury), vegetation and agricultural fertility, or even personifying diseases [Brady 2016, 227-237]. The proper interpretation of the (single) story of hero twins portrays the bats as numerous—the underworld (Xibalba) contained a “house of bats” where the decapitation took place. Bats—plural!

Bats among the Pre-Columbian Mesoamericans could be just bats; bats symbolizing things; divine or at least supernatural bats symbolizing things; humans with bat wings and/or heads; various gods; or even the bat-god himself “Camazotz”. In fact, it was a messenger bat working on behalf of the god Tohil (a weather and fire divinity) that demanded bloody sacrifice in exchange for giving fire to mankind—not Camazotz.

The fourth month (out of eighteen) in the Mayan calendar is “Zotz”. Twenty-year time periods, called Katuns, where separated in Mayan calendar writings with an upside-down bat glyph. This use of the bat glyph appears to have started being used in the late 700s A.D. [Berlin 1964: 1-7].

 

BLOOD

God “Q” of the Maya has been associated with the number 10, bats, death and was the god of human sacrifice. Bat glyphs appear with the “cauc” symbol of circles or bunches of grapes, which alone usually stands for storms, rain, gods, the divine. When used with the bat it may confer divinity (Camazotz himself) or possibly a rain of blood (very bloody human sacrifice). A harvester of blood? Or maybe agriculture?

The extreme bloodiness in the form of self-mutilation and blood-letting itself was a specific goal. Mayan priests/royalty would pierce their tongues or earlobes to draw blood. The bat god appears on the pyramid of Acanceh twice with symbology mimicking the god of rain [Blaffer 1972: 60-61]. Again, raining blood? Maybe not, here it could be the agricultural aspect of the bat—often depicted with a hummingbird—that is being shown. Ruling elites would practice bloodletting, let the blood fall on bark paper and then burn it as an offering to the gods, who themselves shed blood to create man. Men and women are shown piercing themselves or drawing a barbed rope through their earlobes or tongues to shed their own blood—lots of it!

Bats are commonly depicted with a prominent leaf-nose that imitates an obsidian sacrificial dagger. Often the bat is wielding an identical dagger, holding a victim by the hair or even ripping out a human heart. Generally only prestigious prisoners of war were used for direct sacrifice via knife. It is said that the armpit-to-waist area of humans belong to the gods, meaning the area cut open to remove the sacrificial victim’s heart. Even today, with anesthesia and modern pain killer, a thoracotomy (for removing portions of cancerous lungs) is considered one of the most severe medical procedures in terms of post-operative pain. It was a quick, but not at all pleasant way to die.

RANDOM

The Mayan metaphor zutz atax I wut reads as “heavy-faced or bat-faced” meaning someone who is so tired their head is nodding forward, like a bat sleeping hanging upside-down [Aulie, 1951].

There is the oft cited story of the Zotzil Mayans living in Chiapas along the modern Mexican-Guatemala border who found a bat statue and worshiped it as a god, adding it to their other divinities [Ximenez 1929-31: Vol. 2, Ch. 48).

TERRACOTTA AND MAGNETS

This piece is terracotta. Terracotta usually contains magnetite, and when it is fired to a high heat and then cooled slowly the magnetite crystals orient and can become slightly magnetic. So, I tested this statue with an Gauss / EMF meter but the results were too low to register on my simple unit. Next I tried some extremely powerful rare earth magnets (N42 and N52, 13,200 Gauss+) and they actually stuck/repelled from the statue! To be clear: these are very expensive and dangerous rare earth magnets, the kind that if you stuck them to your refrigerator you would need pliers to pull them off of it. And they barely reacted, but they did stick weakly.

So, is this a cast metal statue? Well, if it where are ferric metal like cast iron or steel the magnet would have crushed my fingers against the statue. Also, the statue is way too light in weight to be those. How about aluminum? Well, magnets don't stick to aluminum, but if there are enough impurities (like in some beer cans) and you use a strong enough magnet (like rare earth magnets) you can get the mostly aluminum item to react. However: the statue doesn't feel the correct weight to be aluminum; it has a very glass/pottery like sound when tapping on it; it flakes and powders when an extremely fine blade tip is poked into it. In fact, this is basically how ceramic (non-metallic) magnets are now made in factories every day.

Also, Mesoamericans have been found to use magnetic "lightening stones" in their statues. Some rocks become magnetic after being struck by lightening. I found a citation (but lost it at the moment) that records Mayan clay effigies with small magnetic stones embedded in them. Particularly the facial areas. Where does this bat-god react the most? Right in his cute little snout! Also near the bottom edge of the loincloth. A series of large pot belly head statues made by the earlier Olmec peoples that taken from Monte Alto and moved to the city of La Democracia in Guatemala have been found to contain magnetic areas--a team from Harvard has been mapping out their magnetic fields. Here's a nice link directly to Harvard so you know this isn't a conspiracy theory: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/07/harvard-study-reveals-ancient-mesoamericans-knowledge-about-earths-magnetism/ 

The magnetism of the pot belly statues is focused around the cheeks and belly. Although, much like our bat-god here, that could just be the sharp edges of the statues being more magnet--rather than a conscious effort to localize magnetic materials by the original makers. Also, it could just be naturally occurring in the original materials.

Later on the Maya were still playing around with magnetic materials in the form of iron-ore mirrors made of lodestone, iron pyrite, etc. 

And of course in Chiapas Mexico, specifically the ancient Mayan site called "Izapa" there is the famous turtle sculpture that is a huge magnet. You can visit Tapachula and go see the turtle, he'll make your compass spin. Professor Alberto Passos Guimarães has written about Mesoamerican magents, although mostly physics papers, although his "Mexico and the early history of magnetism" is an easy read.

Gamma Spectrometer Fun

Two different sets of gamma spec run. One gave me a spike at the Protactinium line. Protactinium is in soil, loam and clays. So the clay was made from clay. Learned nothing.

The other run with different voltages, calibration and probe showed Manganese. The Central Tlacolula area has clay low in Manganese; the Western Valle Grande area is relatively high. However, my system isn't in the same league (or calibration) so this also tells me nothing.

The hints of cobalt didn't illuminate matters either.

CITATIONS (NOT COMPLETE-ROUGH DRAFT)

Aulie, E. & Aulie, W. 1951. Palencano Chol-English Vocabulary. Ms. Mexico: Instituto Linguistico de Verano.

Berlin, H. 1964. El glifo ‘zotz invertido’. Antrop. Hist. Guatemala 16, 1-7.

Brady, James E. Bats and the Camazotz: Correcting a Century of Mistaken Identity. Latin American Antiquity. Volume 27, Issue 2, 2016.

Guimaraes, A. P. Mexico and the early history of magnetism. Rev. Mex. F´ıs. E 50 (1) (2004) 51–53; June 2004.

Thompson, J. Eric S. Maya hieroglyphs of the bat as metaphorgrams.

Ximenez, F. 1929-31. History de la Provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala de la Orden de Predicadores. 3 volumes. Guatemala: Soc. Geog. E History.

Rrrrrr...if I gnaw a couple of my arms off I'll look like a bat too!