If there is something that on its own defines the cultural status of the Epiclassic in Mesoamerica, which runs between 850 and 1000 AD, it is the transformation of the political institutions of the State, which would eventually give way to models of government that emphasize the figure of the ruler as the undisputed center of political and social relations of the time.
Although the cult of the ruler could not better express the sacredness conferred upon the elder and the extraordinary power that was concentrated in his person, in this particular moment of civilization, it was in itself an unmistakable symptom of the crisis in which the institutions of the State found themselves, and of their evolution towards forms of authority that from that point on would be based on a new ideology that promoted the rapid rise of a kind of warrior aristocracy linked to a cultural tradition taken from central Mexico, which, on the other hand, would also end up extending throughout much of central and southern Mesoamerica.
The middle basin of the Papaloapan River played a very important role at this time, the coast of the Gulf of Mexico was "split" in half at this precise point, to the south was the Maya area, while to the north were the territories of El Tajin and the settlements that from time immemorial shared a cultural substrate that we now know as the cultures of Central Veracruz.
Yolks, axes and palms, a group of small sculptures linked to the ceremony of the ball game and probably originally from the cultural universe of El Tajín, not only came regularly to the banks of the Papaloapan while traveling to southern Mexico, they were also locally imitated with basalt or andesite. Here they lost the artistic style that usually distinguishes them in Mesoamerica though it was not due to this that were they moved away from the usual themes. Dogs, the faces of old men and other forms associated with them remained intact, only that now they were in charge of a regional artistic style that owed little or nothing to the sculpture of El Tajin.
This magnificent piece from the Amparo Museum carved in basalt rock is an exceptional example of this process that proposes to reformulate the artistic dimension of such important liturgical objects. The dog comes from afar in the symbolic tradition of the Gulf coast, but in this sort of palm or in what is still recognizable in this class of objects that trace their origins to the era of El Tajín, its form has been adapted to the prevailing artistic models in the Papaloapan river basin at that time.
If there is something that on its own defines the cultural status of the Epiclassic in Mesoamerica, which runs between 850 and 1000 AD, it is the transformation of the political institutions of the State, which would eventually give way to models of government that emphasize the figure of the ruler as the undisputed center of political and social relations of the time.
