What does «chac mool» mean in Spanish?
- Term used to refer to a particular form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its head oriented 90 degrees from the front, resting on its elbows and holding a bowl or disk on its stomach. These figures possibly symbolized dead warriors carrying offerings to the gods; the bowl on the chest was used to hold sacrificial offerings, including 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). The cuauhxicalli were often associated with sacrificial stones or thrones. Aztec chacmools had water images 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 form of sculpture first appeared around the 9th century A.D. in the Valley of Mexico and the northern Yucatan Peninsula.