Toltec Starfish Deposit at Tula Reveals Deep Cosmic and Ocean Ties

Five starfish in a highly elaborate ritual deposit at the Toltec site of Tula have been found – an exhibition of how central the ocean and its creatures were to the economy, religion, and artistic practices of pre-Hispanic times. Subject of a recent study, specialists and archaeologists alike focused on a group of calcareous plates discovered in the 1990s, found in a ritual deposit at the Burned Palace structure. They’ve been dated to between 950 and 1000 AD.

The Tula Archaeological Zone in Hidalgo is under investigation by specialists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology (ICML) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The aforementioned calcareous plates (which are the bony structures made of calcium carbonate that form the skeleton of many marine invertebrates) have long been suspected to be remains of echinoderms – a variety of marine species that include sea stars, sea cucumbers, brittle stars, and urchins. These finds have been published in the latest edition of Mexican Archaeology (Arquelogica Mexica).

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Marine Species and Cosmogramming – A Symbolic Model of the Universe

Leonardo López Luján, director of the INAH Templo Mayor Project, explained that the calcareous plates in this Tula offering formed part of a cosmogram – a symbolic model of the universe as envisioned by the ancient residents of the highland city.

The ritual deposit or offering was first discovered in 1993–1994 during archaeological work led by Elba Estrada Hernández, and dated 1200-1300 years old. It was found in the courtyard of the second of three rooms within the Burned Palace, part of a project to better understand the structure’s construction and restore its drainage system.

Carefully sealed within a 44-centimeter-wide cavity (17.32 in), “Offering 1” as it was called, included a tezcacuitlapilli, or dorsal mirror, measuring 34 centimeters (17.32 in) in diameter and crafted from pyrite and turquoise tiles, reports a press release by INAH.

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Tezcacuitlapilli from Offering 1 of the Burnt Palace, piece restored by Valerie Magar and Patricia Meehan. (Leonardo López Luján/INAH)

The tezcacuitlapilli was covered by the cosmogram and consisted of four groups of symbolic items representing the cardinal directions: 11 rosacea shell beads to the north, 17 mother-of-pearl plates to the south, a fragment of soft coral to the east, and a cluster of calcareous plates to the west.

In total, a total of 2,720 calcareous plates were catalogued from the offering, with sizes ranging from 2 to 15 millimeters and a total weight of 64.84 grams. With similar artifacts found at Templo Mayor, though over 500 years newer than the current find, the conditions of the burial had softened surfaces and displayed signs of mineralization.

After separating, categorizing, and identification of species of each of these tiny plates, the comparison was made to modern starfish specimens from ICML’s National Collection of Echinoderms, named in honor of Dr. María Elena Caso Muñoz.

Nidorellia armata (Gray,1840). Specimen from the National Collection of Echinoderms. (C. Rabbits/INAH)

Pacific Abundance: Ancient Ties Across Tula’s Historical Layers

The study identified three individuals of Nidorellia armata, popularly known as the “chocolate chip star,” and two of Pentaceraster cumingi, known as the “cushion star”, reports The HeritageDaily. Both species are abundantly found in the Pacific, from the Gulf of California to the coasts of Peru and the Galapagos Islands. The researchers speculate that certain historical ties existed between the ancient civilizations of the Mexican highlands and the coastal Pacific regions during the Early Postclassic period (900–1200 AD).

“To date, only two species of starfish have been identified, both, incidentally, also present in the Tenochtitlan offerings. However, given the great antiquity of the archaeological contexts of Tula, it is possible that more graceful and therefore more fragile species have not reached our days, but only those with a robust anatomy”, the referred article concludes.

Incidentally, representations of starfish have been found earlier in Tula, on ceramic objects as artistic representations, including those led by Richard Diehl in 1971. “The latest study indicates the symbolic importance that the Toltecs attributed to echinoderms, both in their ritual life and in their cosmological conceptions,” eloquently writes Mark Milligan in the same The HeritageDaily article.

Tula was settled for the first time around 400 BC in the Tula valley, southwest of the Mexican state of Hidalgo. With the fall of Teotihuacan, Tula became the capital of the Toltec empire, until it was abandoned in the 12th century, mostly due to internal conflict. In its heyday, Tula covered an area of 14 km. sq. (5.40 sq. mi) and had a population of around 60,000 inhabitants.

View of the columns of the burned palace at Tula Hidalgo. (Susana Torres Sánchez/CC BY-SA 3.0)

This research team has been working together since 2010 and have previously found a cache of 164 starfish discovered at Templo Mayor. These Toltec artifacts are preserved by INAH’s National Coordination for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage.

Top image: Left: Specimen from the National Collection of Echinoderms. Right top:Tezcacuitlapilli from Offering 1 of the Burnt Palace, Toltec site of Tula. Right bottom: Brazier discovered in Ball Game II of Tula.   Source: Left; C. Conejeros. Right top; Leonardo López Luján. Right bottom: Digital archive of the MNA collections, INAH-CANON / INAH

By Sahir Pandey