Jaguar Puma Cat Mexican Art Aztec Teotihuacan Animal Figure Obsidian Stone 16"

Description

This beautiful art piece comes from the region of Teotihuacan, Mexico.  The artists of Teotihuacan are very talented and work with various mediums such a clay, resin, glass, stone and minerals and their art pieces can take their form in sculpture, pottery, burial masks and murals.  Their art can range from highly stylized to minimalist.  The art forms are often of deities, monuments of the Teotihuacan culture, or pieces representative of the Aztec culture which influenced the region.  Black obsidian is the most significant stone/glass used in their art, yet sculptures and masks are also embellished with a variety of quartz,  jade, basalt, greenstone, andesite, and shell that are highly polished, with particular detail found in the eyes.
This jaguar / puma piece is a combination of resin base structure with amazing clay and stone embellishments all around.. from the plumed back drape and ankle work to the stone surrounds and eyes to the stones all down the tail.. truly amazing.  The center stone on the back is sheen obsidian with other obsidian and various shades of quartz stones embedded all around.  It measures 7" tall by 5 x 16".  A collector's piece for sure.
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History of Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (where this piece is from)  was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican city located in a sub valley of the Valley of Mexico, located in the State of Mexico.  Although it is a subject of debate whether Teotihuacan was the center of a state empire, its influence throughout Mesoamerica is well documented. It is still a mystery as to who built this amazing city. It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the swooping arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec in central Mexico. But it was the Aztec, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt falling awestruck by what they saw, who gave it a name: Teotihuacan.  The city
reached its zenith between 100 B.C. and A.D. 650 and supported a population of a hundred thousand.
No matter its principal builders, scholars and evidence suggest that Te
otihuacan hosted a patchwork of cultures including the Maya, Mixtec, and Zapotec. One theory says an erupting volcano forced a wave of immigrants into the Teotihuacan
valley and that those refugees either built or bolstered the city.
The city and the archaeological site are located in what is now the San Juan Teotihuacan municipality in the State of Mexico approximately 25 miles northeast of Mexico City. The site covers a total surface area of  32 square miles and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. It is known today as the site of many of the most architecturally significant Mesoamerican pyramids built in the pre-Columbian America, including the Pyramid of the Sun.