Xochicalco

Last Thursday we went to Xochicalco, which is an ancient pyramid site near Cuernavaca. It is in the middle of mountains, and from the top you can see very far away. Here is a view of some old rooms and the mountains in the background.

This is a picture of a smaller temple that is on the top of the larger pyramid.

This image on the side of one of the temples is Quetzalcoatl, one of the Nahua gods. His name means "feathered serpent" because quetzal means bird and coatl means serpent. This god is a mixture of the human and divine for several reasons. Feathers represent the divine and sacred, while the snake represents humanity. If you look at the picture, you can see that the snake has teeth, another representation of the god's human side. It is said that Quetzalcoatl came to earth in a human form, and studied at this temple, and so he is especially important in this area of Mexico.

This is a depiction of a priest. The imagery that I really like here is what is coming from his mouth. One curve goes up, and kind of looks like a butterfly. The other one curls down towards the ground. The curl that goes up represents him speaking to the gods (a butterfly is another symbol of the divine) and the curl that is going down represents him speaking to the people. Similar imagery is used with Quetzalcoatl, and if you look at the previous picture you can see that his tongue goes straight down, which again represents speaking to people on earth. There are also some carvings of 3 women priests on this temple, which is pretty cool and shows that women held important positions in society as well.

Its not all super-serious though. After Xochicalco we went to an old hacienda-turned-weekend-retreat for an overnight. One of our teachers' partner's family owns the hacienda, so I think the program stays there a lot for staff retreats and stuff. It was the most green I've seen since I've been here because right now its the dry season. They must irrigate, and it was beautiful.