Place of the high painted walls: The Tepantitla murals and the Teotihuacan writing system (Mexico).

摘要

Teotihuacan constitutes one of the earliest complex societies of ancient Mesoamerica. The murals of Portico 2 within the Tepantitla compound, in particular, are key sources of information about Teotihuacan religion, its writing system, and perhaps the educational training of its youths. Among the five extant Portico 2 murals, 164 human figures are shown engaged in a variety of activities. This dissertation offers the most comprehensive and updated discussion of the themes of the murals, which include water, agricultural fertility, abundance, playing games, a floral paradise, body segmentation, facial decoration, dance, music, feasting, poetry, and drama. The Tepantitla compound may have served as a House of Song, a tradition known among the ancient Maya and Aztec.; The Tepantitla Mural Project (TMP), directed by myself in conjunction with Dr. Gene Ware of Brigham Young University, used multispectral imaging to record over 1,750 images of the Portico 2 murals in a digital format. As a result of analyzing the TMP data from 1999 to 2004, I created color reconstitutions and updated fineline drawings of the murals of Portico 2.; This dissertation identifies and analyzes the glyphs of the entire corpus of Portico 2 murals; it is the first to do so in light of the recently identified Teotihuacan writing system (see Taube 2000a). At least 40 glyphs are present among the Portico 2 murals. Such a large corpus of glyphs is rare at Teotihuacan and is comparable only to the Plaza de los Glifos at the La Ventilla compound.; This thesis is a major contribution to the study of Teotihuacan writing, iconography, and religion. The murals of Portico 2 depict concepts of Teotihuacan worldview, as well as actual events, such as games. This study of the glyphs from Portico 2 sheds light on the still poorly understood writing system from Teotihuacan and in the broader sense, it contributes to the understanding of the development of writing in highland Mexico from the Formative period through the early colonial period.