Editing Chacmool (section)

{{Short description|Mesoamerican sculpture}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2020}}
[[File:2015-07 k1 CDMX 830.jpg|thumb|right|Maya chacmool from [[Chichen Itza]], excavated by Le Plongeon  in 1875, now displayed at the [[Museo Nacional de Antropología|National Museum of Anthropology]] in Mexico City]]
A '''chacmool''' (also spelled '''chac-mool''' or '''Chac Mool''') is a form of [[pre-Columbian]] [[Mesoamerican]] sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its head facing 90 degrees from the front, supporting itself on its elbows and supporting a bowl or a disk upon its stomach. These figures possibly symbolised slain warriors carrying offerings to the gods; the bowl upon the chest was used to hold sacrificial offerings, including [[pulque]], [[tamale]]s, [[tortilla]]s, [[tobacco]], turkeys, feathers, and incense. In  [[Aztec]] examples, the receptacle is a [[cuauhxicalli]] (a stone bowl to receive [[human sacrifice in Aztec culture|sacrificed human hearts]]).  Chacmools were often associated with sacrificial stones or thrones.<ref name="MillerTaube93-03,p60">Miller and Taube 1993, 2003, p. 60.</ref> The chacmool form of sculpture first appeared around the 9th century AD in the [[Valley of Mexico]] and the northern [[Yucatán Peninsula]].

Aztec chacmools bore water imagery and were associated with [[Tlaloc]], the rain god. Their symbolism placed them on the frontier between the physical and supernatural realms, as intermediaries with the gods.