Small Silver Sculpture of Chac Mool

Chac Mool is the term used to refer to a particular form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture depicting a reclining figure with the head facing 90 degrees to the front, leaning on its elbows and resting a bowl or disk on its stomach. These figures possibly symbolize dead warriors carrying offerings to the gods; the bowl on the chest was used to hold sacrificial offerings, which included pulque, tamales, tortillas, tobacco, turkeys, feathers, and incense. In one Aztec example, the receptacle is a cuauhxicalli (a stone bowl for receiving sacrificed human hearts). Chacmools were often associated with sacrificial stones or thrones. Aztec chacmools had images of water and were associated with Tlaloc, the rain god. Their symbolism placed them on the border between the physical and supernatural realms, as intermediaries with the gods. The chacmool sculpture form first appeared around the 9th century AD in the Valley of Mexico and the northern Yucatan Peninsula.