|
El Fraile (the Friar) is the common name by the local people of this monolith:  "This image, which we also judge to be feminine, already represents a transition toward the Third Period. Its stomach is bulky ... and it would seem that the desire was to represent her as pregnant ... Without doubt this was also an idol dedicated to the 'lacustrine worship' since all of its adornments ... have a connection with the fauna of the immense lake which surrounded the great metropolis in that distant epoch in which it was carved. Perhaps it symbolizes the 'pregnant goddess of the fecundity of the fish and other aquatic animals', since the fish in the symbology of all the inhabitants of the Americas was the prototype of fecundity because of the enormous number of eggs which it carried." "The red sandstone of which the idol was carved shows vertically a white band of a light vein in the rock. It is possible that the block was picked in the quarry because of this mark for symbolic ends." (Posnansky) |