Mural Fragment with Elite Male and Maguey Cactus Leaves
500–550
- Medium
- fresco on wall fragment
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 83.2 x 116.2 cm (32 3/4 x 45 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Central Mexico, Tlacuilapaxco apartment compound(?), Teotihuacán style, Classic Period
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Art of the Americas
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This richly dressed elite male belonged to a row of identical figures who processed along the walls of a patio in one of Teotihuacán’s wealthy apartment compounds. He offers a chant or prayer, materialized in a mouth scroll, along with a flower-filled libation that cascades from one hand. In the other hand, he carries an incense bag. The thorny spines of the maguey cactus, in front and behind, may allude to the offering of precious blood and a ritual beverage made from the cactus’s sap (pulque, a less refined form of tequila). The spines are thrust into objects that may represent bundles or plots of land.
