By Randy Jackson—

Around the turn of the twelfth century AD, the Mixtec conqueror 8 Deer Jaguar Claw demanded tribute from a town at the mouth of the Copalita River, the place now known as the Copalita archaeological site (Parque Eco-Arqueológico Copalita). We know this because a highly skilled Mixtec artisan painted the conqueror’s story on a long strip of deerskin. That brightly coloured ‘book’, now called the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, is housed in the British Museum, where it is admired as a masterpiece of ancient art.

Art, as we now understand it, is the work of individual creativity, made to be displayed and admired for its own sake. The codex was not created primarily to be admired as art. It was created to proclaim authority. Yet an object’s purpose does not exclude its beauty, nor does it keep us from appreciating it on our own terms. Like the codex, objects found at the Copalita archaeological site are often beautiful, and knowing what they were made to do can enhance our appreciation of them.

The Axe-money Stone

The axe-money stone is one such object, and its location, the site’s ball court, is significant. Every Mesoamerican town of any consequence had a ball court, and this one had its court by about AD 600. It shows the town was a civic and religious centre, sharing the same ritual world as great cities such as Monte Albán.

Axe money, represented on a carved stone in the ball court, was a form of currency made of flat, thin pieces of copper shaped like small, stylized axes. People often used the pieces to pay tribute. Archaeologists have found them bundled in burial sites, suggesting they represented not only wealth but also symbolic or ceremonial value in the afterlife.

Why the axe-money symbol was carved in the ball court is unknown. It could declare prosperity, or even indicate that the ball court hosted high-level, elite competitions in which axe money was wagered or awarded as a prize. Whatever the reason, like the codex, the stone was not made to be admired as art. It had a job to do.

Clay Figurines

On the hillside above the Copalita River, archaeologists have uncovered household compounds dating back more than 2,000 years. At the time, homes were not the private refuges we think of today, nor were the objects found there decorative art. Among the finds were many clay figurines, nearly all of them women, and most were broken.

Examples of similar clay figurines from the same era, found in central Mexico, are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection in New York. We see them today as art, but that was not their original purpose.

Each figurine was hand-shaped, so no two are alike, and each was small enough to fit in the palm. This craft tradition lasted for centuries. Archaeologists have found them in homes and graves, suggesting a ceremonial role, perhaps tied to fertility or daily rituals, though exactly how they were used remains unknown.

Although their original purpose was not art, their stylized depictions of the human form are themselves artistic. The anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake calls this impulse “making special”: making something ordinary extraordinary. It may be where creativity and art begin. The broken figurines found in ordinary homes on the hillside above the Copalita River testify to that artistic impulse.

What the Codex tells us

For the ancient inhabitants of Copalita, appearing in the Codex Zouche-Nuttall was no honour. It shows that Copalita was conquered and owed tribute (and it makes no mention of the beach). But the fact that Copalita was represented in some way speaks to something fundamental in Art: Representation.

Take, for example, the conqueror himself, 8 Deer Jaguar Claw. His illustration was not an attempt at realistic portraiture, but a representation of his name and his power. For centuries, the codex’s representations have served multiple purposes. Art is only the latest.

The Codex Zouche-Nuttall is an eleven-metre strip of deerskin coated in white plaster, folded like an accordion into 47 panels, painted on both sides. One side is dedicated to the founding and ruling families of several Mixtec kingdoms. The other side is devoted to 8 Deer’s biography, conquests, and rank as king. Taken together, it functions like a title deed for his kingdom and a claim to legitimacy for his descendants.

One panel in particular shows the ceremony in which 8 Deer received a turquoise nose ornament, a symbol of Toltec royal authority. These are representations within representations: the ornament represents royal authority, the codex represents 8 Deer receiving it, and the British Museum now represents the codex as Art.

The three objects discussed here tell us something about this ancient place at the mouth of the Copalita River, and something about Art. For the people who lived here, these objects and the images on them were familiar, and they carried meanings everyone understood. The artisans who made them put their time, care and attention into making them as beautiful as they could. Centuries later, those meanings have faded, but the care remains. The makers gave these objects their beauty, a gift for all time. We gave them the name Art.

Randy Jackson blends local reporting from the perspective of a seasonal Huatulco resident with explorations of life and change in Huatulco, Oaxaca, and Mexico. Email: box95jackson@gmail.com