Mythic battle between a crocodilian creature
Mythic battle between a crocodilian creature and with the entrails spilling out of the defeated humans Site: Becan Culture: Maya Date: Early Classic (c. AD 250-400) Context: Structure 9 Medium: Polychromatically painted ceramic vessel Figure credit: Drawing by Christophe Helmke. Photograph by Jorge Pérez de Lara – The setting is a mythic battle in primordial […]
Battle scene at Cacaxtla
Battle scene at Cacaxtla, showing captives whose entrails are gush out of the severed abdomen Site: Cacaxtla Culture: Epiclassic Date: Epiclassic (c. AD 650-850) Context: Building B, western talud Medium: Polychromatic mural painting Figure credit: Photograph by Ricardo Alvarado / Drawing by Citlali Coronel – This elaborate and colorful mural of a tortuous and bloody […]
Depiction of a mortuary bundle at Teotihuacan
Depiction of a mortuary bundle at Teotihuacan, here adorned with human hearts and intestines. Site: Teotihuacan Culture: Teotihuacan Date: Early Classic (c. AD 250-550) Context: Tetitla, Portico 11, Mural 3 Medium: Polychromatic mural painting Figure credit: Photograph by Christophe Helmke – Long thought to represent one of the salient female deities of the ancient pantheon […]
Early Zapotec stone relief of a sacrificial victim with a disembowelled abdomen
Early Zapotec stone relief of a sacrificial victim with a disembowelled abdomen Site: San José Mogote Culture: early Zapotec Date: Early Preclassic (c. BC 600-500) Context: Corridor between Structure 14 and 19, Monument 3 Medium: Stone relief Figure credit: Drawing by Mark Orsen – Placed as a step at the head of an hallway, the […]
Terracotta anatomical votive; spiral coil ending in trefoil
Terracotta anatomical votive; spiral coil ending in trefoil. Tivoli/Lazio, 3rdC BC-1stC BC © The Trustees of the British Museum Museum Number 1899,0720.13 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 – This terracotta votive nicely combines the clean volumetric rotundity of the belly with the coiled shape of the imagined innards (intestines? the uterus? the spiral image as an abstract […]
Terracotta anatomical votive
Terracotta anatomical votive 3rdC BC-1stC BC © The Trustees of the British Museum, Museum Number 1839,0214.51CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 – This image represents an inner part; some of the features, such as the ribs and wrinkles and the central globe, point to a womb as an ‘empty sack’, a container ready to receive the embryo; on […]
The right kidney as the gate of life
A B The Right kidney as the Gate of life. A No title. The right kidney as the Gate of life. Kajiwara Shōzen 梶原性全 (1265–1337) Man’anpo 万安方, 1315–27, scroll 54. Edo 江戸 period (1603–1868) manuscript. National Archives of Japan. B ‘The Right kidney as the Gate of life governs blood and essence and enters the […]
The Screen gate
A B The Screen gate A No title. The Screen gate. Kajiwara Shōzen 梶原性全 (1265–1337) Man’anpo 万安方, 1315–27, scroll 54. Edo 江戸 period (1603–1868) manuscript. National Archives of Japan. B ‘Illustration of the Screen gate that separates water and grains’, Lanmen shuigu mibie tu 闌門水穀泌別圖. Wang Haogu 王好古 (1200–64?) The Great Teaching of Yi Yin’s Decoction […]
Hieroglyph from the obelisk of Thutmose III
Hieroglyph from the obelisk of Thutmose III at the Constantinople Hippodrome Wikimedia Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) – The hieroglyphic sign F46 depicts coiled intestines, abstracted to the point of forming a regular, oblong spiralling shape. As with other internal organs used in Egyptian iconography, the intestines depicted are almost certainly those of an animal, […]
Drawing of rock carving of an elk with numerous anatomical parts depicted
Drawing of rock carving of an elk with numerous anatomical parts depicted. Åskollen in southern Norway. From: Rock Art and the Wild Mind. Visual Imagery in Mesolithic Northern Europe. Ingrid Fuglestvedt, Copyright © 2018, London, Routledge. Figure 5.2, page 192. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Group. – A few rock carvings in southern […]