A metate (or mealing stone) is a type or variety of quern, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican cultures, metates are typically used by women who would grind nixtamalized maize and other organic materials during food preparation (e.g., making tortillas). Similar artifacts have been found in other regions, such as the sil-batta in Bihar and Jharkhand, India [1] as well as other grinding stones in China. [2]
While varying in specific morphology, metates are typically made of a large stone with a smooth depression or bowl worn into the upper surface. Materials are ground on the metate using a smooth hand-held stone known as a mano or metlapil. [3] This action consists of a horizontal grinding motion that differs from the vertical crushing motion used in a mortar and pestle. The depth of the bowl varies, though they are typically not deeper than those of a mortar; deeper metate bowls indicate either a longer period of use or greater degree of activity (i.e., economic specialization).
The specific angles of the metate body allow for a proficient method of turning grains into flour. [4] Lesley Téllez describes the grinding action of a metate as using "your wrists to kind of rotate the metlapil forward, while at the same time pressing downward, hard, with the palms of your hands." [3]
Metates can be categorized by the shape of the grinding surface. One categorization identifies four such shapes: flat, flat/concave, basin, and trough. [5] Basin-shaped metates are used with a circular grinding stroke, while flat and trough-shaped metates are used with a back-and-forth reciprocal or reciprocal-rocking stroke. [5]
Another type of metate called a grinding slab may also be found among boulder or exposed bedrock outcroppings. The upper face of the stone is used for grinding materials, such as acorns, that results in the smoothing of the stone's face and the creation of pocked dimples.
The use of metates is estimated to have begun in the Upper Cenolithic period in Mexico, sometime between c. 5000 BC – c. 3000 BC, [6] and in the Middle Archaic period in the American Southwest, c. 3500 BC. [5] The first known metates were flat or basin-shaped; trough-shaped metates came into use in the Southwest around AD 450. [5]
Metates are still used in some areas today. For example, in parts of rural Mexico, women use metates to grind nixtamalized corn for tortillas. [3]
Carved, volcanic-stone ceremonial metates represent one of the most unusual and complex traditions of pre-Columbian artifacts from Costa Rica. They come in many different forms, and morphological variation corresponds to different regions and time periods. They can be rectangular, circular, flat, or curved. They may or may not have rims and three or four legs. Some exhibits show signs of use-wear while others show no signs of wear and appear to have been made specifically for use as burial goods. Some examples characterized as metate might have actually been a type of throne for sitting on – not a metate at all.
Some examples are known as effigy-headed metate, which feature an animal’s head at one end, with the metate itself making up the body of the creature. Animals typically depicted are jaguar, crocodile or birds. The most complex type of ceremonial metate is the class referred to as “flying-panel” metate. This style comes from the Atlantic watershed region, including the City of Guayabo and represents a high level of craftsmanship and complexity. Carved from a single piece of stone, these metates typically contain multiple figures, both underneath the plate and on the legs. Trophy heads, birds, jaguar, monkey and saurian figures are the most common themes. The “flying panel” metate is believed to be the precursor to free standing sculptural figures more common later in the Atlantic watershed region.
The earliest traditions of stone sculpture in Costa Rica, including ceremonial metate, began in late Period IV (A.D. 1–500). Metate from the Nicoya/Guanacaste region have longitudinally curved and rimless plates. Those from the Atlantic Watershed have a plate that is horizontally flat and rimmed. Both are associated with mortuary goods, suggesting differential social status existed within these communities. The three main types of Costa Rican stone sculpture at this time—tripod-metate, mace heads and jade “axe-god” pendants—peaked and declined in use during Period V (A.D. 500–1000).
Stone sculpture was never popular again in the Nicoya/Guanacaste region, but in the Atlantic Watershed (such as from Guayabo) by Period VI (A.D. 1000–1500), freestanding figural sculpture and new forms of ceremonial metate came into use. These new metate types might be rectangular with four legs like the jaguar effigy-head examples or might be round in shape with a pedestal base. These latter types often have carved human heads (or just suggestive notches) around the rim implying a relationship with ritual trophy-head taking. This particular form of metate seems to have been influenced by the stone sculptures of the Panamanian site of Barriles.
At the site of Las Huacas, fifteen metates were excavated from sixteen graves. None of these metates had manos (grinding stones), suggesting that the carved metate as a mortuary object had a deeper symbolic meaning than just the processing of foodstuffs. The metate's basic mechanical purpose is a platform on which (primarily) maize is ground into flour. This transformation of grain to flour has symbolic implications relating to life, death and rebirth. It is still not clear if maize was a main source of sustenance, and it is entirely possible that maize was reserved for making chicha (beer), for use in ritual feasting activities. Given their role as a burial good, it seems that metate held a strong meaning for human life, death and the hope for a rebirth or transformation of some kind.
The three most popular iconographic elements of ceremonial metate seem to be saurian, bird, and jaguar creatures. Monkeys are also common. A unique feature of ceremonial metate is the lack of human figures. Disembodied heads are the sole exception. While human figures become the main subject of the free standing sculptures, which depict nude females or male warriors with trophy heads and bound male captives, these do not seem to have been depicted on metate. Flying-panel metates often have anthropomorphic figures, but these always have animal (often crocodile) heads.
In both the Nicoya and Atlantic-Watershed regions, metates are often made with saurian (specifically crocodile, alligator, or caiman) imagery. It is thought that the saurian represents the surface of the earth, which relates to agricultural fertility. [7] One of the oldest and most prominent themes in Chibcha art is that of the Crocodile god. Depicted as an anthropomorphic being with a crocodile head, he has been carved into fly-panel metates, sometimes shown standing on a double-headed saurian and other times on a jaguar. As a symbol, the double-headed Saurian has the longest use and distribution of any iconographic element in the Isthmo-Columbian area.
Costa Rica flying-panel metates date to the 1st and 7th centuries. However, certain features of the Crocodile god depicted on flying-panel metates show him with unnatural U-shaped elbows and long, narrow fingers, as seen on crocodile gods made in gold that date to the 10th–16th centuries. These stylistic forms make sense for use in the small gold ornaments made with the lost-wax technique, but seem strange for use in carved stone. Perhaps these metates date much later than previously thought, and were inspired by the depictions in gold. [8]
Birds with long, curving beaks that seem to represent vultures, toucans or maybe hummingbirds are another popular theme. First found in Costa Rica on Pavas and El Bosque-phase pottery, these are a common element in flying-panel metates, sometimes depicted with or pecking at human heads.
The largest collection is in the National Museum of Costa Rica. A collection of over 20 metates can be found in the British Museum [9]
The first indigenous peoples of Costa Rica were hunters and gatherers, and when the Spanish conquerors arrived, Costa Rica was divided in two distinct cultural areas due to its geographical location in the Intermediate Area, between Mesoamerican and the Andean cultures, with influences of both cultures.
A chacmool 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, tamales, tortillas, tobacco, turkeys, feathers, and incense. In Aztec examples, the receptacle is a cuauhxicalli. Chacmools were often associated with sacrificial stones or thrones. The chacmool form of sculpture first appeared around the 9th century AD in the Valley of Mexico and the northern Yucatán Peninsula.
In archaeology, ground stone is a category of stone tool formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally. Ground stone tools are usually made of basalt, rhyolite, granite, or other cryptocrystalline and igneous stones whose coarse structure makes them ideal for grinding other materials, including plants and other stones.
Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, used for triturating, crushing or, more specifically, grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones.
A mortar and pestle is a set of two simple tools used to prepare ingredients or substances by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste or powder in the kitchen, laboratory, and pharmacy. The mortar is characteristically a bowl, typically made of hardwood, metal, ceramic, or hard stone such as granite. The pestle is a blunt, club-shaped object. The substance to be ground, which may be wet or dry, is placed in the mortar where the pestle is pounded, pressed, or rotated into the substance until the desired texture is achieved.
A molcajete and tejolote are stone tools, the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle, similar to the South American batan, used for grinding various food products.
Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The pre-Columbian era continued for a time after these in many places, or had a transitional phase afterwards. Many types of perishable artifacts that were once very common, such as woven textiles, typically have not been preserved, but Precolumbian monumental sculpture, metalwork in gold, pottery, and painting on ceramics, walls, and rocks have survived more frequently.
The stone spheres of Costa Rica are an assortment of over 300 petrospheres in Costa Rica, on the Diquís Delta and on Isla del Caño. Locally, they are also known as bolas de piedra. The spheres are commonly attributed to the extinct Diquís culture, and they are sometimes referred to as the Diquís Spheres. They are the best-known stone sculptures of the Isthmo-Colombian area.
Ancient Maya art comprises the visual arts of the Maya civilization, an eastern and south-eastern Mesoamerican culture made up of a great number of small kingdoms in present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. Many regional artistic traditions existed side by side, usually coinciding with the changing boundaries of Maya polities. This civilization took shape in the course of the later Preclassic Period, when the first cities and monumental architecture started to develop and the hieroglyphic script came into being. Its greatest artistic flowering occurred during the seven centuries of the Classic Period.
A bedrock mortar (BRM) is an anthropogenic circular depression in a rock outcrop or naturally occurring slab, used by people in the past for grinding of grain, acorns or other food products. There are often a cluster of a considerable number of such holes in proximity indicating that people gathered in groups to conduct food grinding in prehistoric cultures. Correspondingly the alternative name gossip stone is sometimes applied, indicating the social context of the food grinding activity. Typical dimensions of the circular indentations are approximately 12 centimeters in diameter by 10 centimeters deep, although a considerable range of depths of the cavities have been documented. The bedrock mortar has been identified in a number of world regions, but has been particularly intensely documented in the Americas. An alternative term for the bedrock mortar site is bedrock milling station.
The pre-Columbian history of Costa Rica extends from the establishment of the first settlers until the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas.
San Juan Achiutla is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 49.76 km2. It is located in a mountain range, between the hills Negro to the East, Yucuquise to the Northwest, Cuate to the North and Totolote to the South. It is crossed by the river Los Sabinos and has a dam called Cahuayande. Its weather is temperate. It is in the Mixteca Alta, one of the three parties that make up the Mixteca region and in the Mixteca Alta is part of what was Achiutla, the significant Prehispanic place.
Barriles is one of the most famous archaeological sites in Panama. It is located in the highlands of the Chiriquí Province of Western Panama at 1200 meters above sea level. It is several kilometers west of the modern town of Volcán. This places the site in the Gran Chiriquí culture area. The site was originally named for several small stone barrels found in the area, although these have also been found elsewhere in the Río Chiriquí Viejo valley and in Costa Rica. This area has a cool, spring-like climate with a pronounced rainy season between May and November, and a dry but windy season the rest of the year. The region lies on the western flanks of Volcán Barú, a dormant volcano and the highest mountain in Panama.
The Double-headed serpent is an Aztec sculpture. It is a snake with two heads composed of mostly turquoise pieces applied to a wooden base. It came from Aztec Mexico and might have been worn or displayed in religious ceremonies. The mosaic is made of pieces of turquoise, spiny oyster shell and conch shell. The sculpture is at the British Museum. Ancient Aztecs have also termed this creature as 'Mansee' which translates as 'The Voice of Heart'.
Ometepe Island is an important archaeological site, located in the Lake Nicaragua in the Republic of Nicaragua, administratively belongs to the Rivas Department. Its name derives from the Nahuatl words ome (two) and tepetl (mountain), meaning two mountains, given that it is formed and practically the whole island is formed by two volcanoes: Concepción and Maderas.
Michael Jay Snarskis was an American archeologist who founded the scientific study of archaeology in Costa Rica. At that time, almost all artifacts available to collectors were shorn of their provenance and historical significance by huaquero looters, whom Snarskis described as "the tomb-robbers ... who have [made] such studies more difficult."
The Diquis culture was a pre-Columbian indigenous culture of Costa Rica that flourished from AD 700 to 1530. The word "diquís" means "great waters" or "great river" in the Boruca language. The Diquis formed part of the Greater Chiriqui culture that spanned from southern Costa Rica to western Panama.
Household stone implements in Karnataka, India used for wet grinding, dry grinding and pounding are oralu kallu, beeso kallu, dundagallu and kutni.
The Kingdom of Nicoya, also called Cacicazgo or Lordship of Nicoya, was an indigenous nation that comprised much of the territory of the current Guanacaste Province, in the North Pacific of Costa Rica. Its political, economic and religious center was the city of Nicoya, located on the peninsula of the same name, which depends on several provinces located on both banks of the Gulf of Nicoya, as well as numerous tributary villages. In the 16th century, prior to the arrival of Europeans, Nicoya was the most important chiefdom of the North Pacific of present-day Costa Rica.
Toyopán, was the name of an old indigenous chieftaincy of Costa Rica, which in the 16th century, upon the arrival of the Spaniards, was ruled by the king Huedo Yorustí. The territories of the former Toyopán cacicazgo included the current cantons of Vázquez de Coronado and Tibás, in the San José Province, and San Isidro and Santo Domingo, in the Heredia Province. The main settlement of Toyopán, the city of Apaikan, was in the current district of San Rafael.
