By the ninth century AD, the set of small sculptures we now know as axes, yokes and palms, so-named according to their general appearance and not because we know the ritual values assigned to them, were taken for trading to territories as far away as the Mayan world. The stone that was used for cutting the parts for the most distant markets was usually of a much greater hardness to that offered by the sandstone from the coastal plain, which was usually carved in metamorphic rocks obtained in the mountains of Puebla and Veracruz, probably between the Cofre de Perote and the present-day city of Xalapa.
This does not mean they could not be made from much softer materials, but perhaps due to practical reasons arising from the specific requirements of long-distance trade it was preferable to exclude those cut in fine-grained sandstone because of their fragility on such long journeys. It would not be surprising that in the future we may be able to see that most of these small sculptures had been carved on the eastern slopes of Cofre de Perote, at least those who used metamorphic rocks or even basalts and andesites in their manufacture.
The complicated sculptural reliefs that distinguish them promptly followed the characteristic style and themes of the iconography of El Tajin, although Tatiana Proskouriakoff had noticed that it is quite possible that the territory where they emerged was never completely composed by a single version of the artistic style, lamenting that it would be so difficult to distinguish changes that indicate regional differences from those that are a direct consequence of the age of time.
This piece appropriates the face of Tlaloc itself, an original deity of the Central Highlands that ended up becoming a numen of the lineages of rulers from the year 400 or 450 A.D., and can be identified due to the large eyes formed by two concentric circles. Carved in basalt, it reveals an already very late representation of the deity (around A.D. 850) where the concentric circles evolved until they became divided in half with the upper part taking on the form of eyebrows.
Here the face looks far more human having broken away from the serrated teeth and large fangs that identify the deity when it is linked with human sacrifice, as happens in the reliefs of the buildings devoted to the ritual ball game, or in the walls of El Tajin itself. There is no doubt that this unique piece was part of the grave goods of a high-ranking personage, unfortunately it was not recovered during controlled archaeological excavations so it is not possible to dwell on the features of the find.
By the ninth century AD, the set of small sculptures we now know as axes, yokes and palms, so-named according to their general appearance and not because we know the ritual values assigned to them, were taken for trading to territories as far away as the Mayan world. The stone that was used for cutting the parts for the most distant markets was usually of a much greater hardness to that offered by the sandstone from the coastal plain, which was usually carved in metamorphic rocks obtained in the mountains of Puebla and Veracruz, probably between the Cofre de Perote and the present-day city of Xalapa.
