The figures of these two seated monkeys with raised tails are inscribed in tiny pyramidal volumes. Both primates gather their limbs towards the torso; in the one leaning forward, the openwork to separate the thin tail, the end of which touches the head, is bold. Precise cuts and wear and tear defined its anatomy, schematic in effect, but sufficiently precise to identify the animal. Above all, the prominence of the orbits and the tapering muzzle, and the elongated tail, are particularly enlightening. The surface finish generated a lustrous effect, except for the punching of the eyes, which may have been inlaid. The masterful technique is distinctive of the lapidary art of the Mezcala cultural tradition.

            This society, scarcely known despite its long history of some one thousand four hundred years, is located in an extensive region bounded by the southern slope of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt and the northern slope of the Sierra Madre del Sur; it includes a large part of Guerrero and areas of Morelos, the State of Mexico and Michoacán; the territory is crossed from east to west by the mighty Mezcala-Balsas River. Mineral resources abound, such as fine-grained and compact hard rocks, whose use as raw materials is typical of lapidary art.

            Lapidary is associated with stones considered "precious" or "semiprecious," which, for this study, can be approached as a cultural conceptualization, rather than in of geology.

            In Mesoamerica, certain types of stones were held in high esteem, whose qualities include their limited availability, peculiar shapes and sizes, color scheme in various shades and intensities, smoothness, durability, brilliance, transparency, translucency, iridescence, and reflectancy. The objects made with them had the quality of jewelry, they were sumptuous goods, regardless of whether they were designed to be worn as ornaments; they were used in ritual paraphernalia, they denoted social prestige, power, and sacredness.

            The idea of "precious" imbricates aesthetic, religious, and economic criteria. The blue-green colored rocks, like the monkey sculptures were see, symbolized the vital, the breath, the cold, the fertility, the humid, the aquatic, and the world below the earth that was filled with water. The link with the marine underworld also concerns the origin, the feminine, the deceased and ancestors, darkness, chaos, sexuality, clouds, lightning, rain, and wind.

            The two monkeys of Mezcala authorship are located in such framework of meanings. The outstanding abundance in Guerrero of green stones of the aluminosilicate or serpentine type does not imply that the objects made from them were not appreciated locally, because their manufacture required highly specialized craftsmen. On the other hand, in Mesoamerica the monkey is found among the fauna associated with the wind, not only as an atmospheric element, but also as a powerful deified entity.

            As has been said about the monkey in the Amparo Museum collection with record 479, in this pair the selected artistic material also determined the closed composition of the images--with the exception of the aforementioned openwork--, clearly opposed to the acrobatic behavior of the primates. This condition does not obscure its underworld symbolism, and I think that its static position, seated with its tail outstretched, is also in affinity with it. In their green stone illustrations, the upward and helical movement of air and water currents is latent.