FORGOTTEN ANCIENT UGARIT ONE OF THE FLOURISHING AND OLDEST CITIES OF CANAAN

Ijicatl, the snake-bird deity and god of wind feared and respected by the Aztecs. Located in the Toluca Valley of highlands central Mexico, Calixtlahuaca is one of the very few Aztec-related urban sites, of which architecture and stone sculpture survived until today. Calixtlahuaca, a circular temple of Ijicatl, the Aztec god of wind. Most of the settlement at Calixtlahuaca occupies the slopes of Cerro Tinismo, a small relic volcano. The Calixtlahuaca Aztec ruins near Toluca are scattered between the valley floor and the summit of the hill. The largest and best-known structure at Calixtlahuaca, is a circular temple, where archaeologists discovered life-sized stone sculpture of the Aztec god of wind, Ijicatl, which simply means wind in Nahuatl. The Aztec codices confirm that Ijicatl was black with a conical head, he wore a red bird mask and shell jewelry, but his favorite piece of jewelry was a wind jewel made of a conch shell. Ijicatl was an important snake-bird deity, Quetzalcoatl, and god of air in the beliefs of the Aztecs. This deity symbolized fertility and human breath, which means this figure was closely associated with life force. The Aztecs believed that Ijicatl, by controlling all kinds of winds, even the strongest ones, he was able to give life into the planet Earth. Ijicatl's role was particularly important because he was credited with creation of the present human race and creation of the heavens as well. Left stone sculpture of Ijicatl, wind god, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico, right, altar dedicated to the god Ijicatl, located in the middle of Metro Pino Suarez, Mexico City. Image via Wikipedia. One legend says that Ijicatl blew on the sacrificial fire to stimulate the rising of the fifth sun and the fifth moon, the sun and moon of the present world, the fifth world. With such contributions, the Aztecs considered Ijicatl a creator god. The Aztecs believed that the sound of the wind in the trees represented Ijicatl's desire. In Aztec myths and legends, Ijicatl plays an important role. One legend says that Ijicatl introduced sexual love to mankind, he once fell in love with Ma Yahuel, a maiden he brought from the underworld. Their lovemaking caused a tree to grow. The Aztecs believed that the sound of the wind in the trees represented Ijicatl's desire. The Aztec codices confirm that Ijicatl was black with a conical head, he wore a red bird mask and shell jewelry, but his favorite piece of jewelry was a wind jewel made of a conch shell. The temples, which the Aztecs built to honor him, were circular shaped with conical roofs to symbolize caves to the underworld. According to one interpretation, a circle, which is endless and round, the temple's rounded corners may have represented the god Ijicatl's infinite powers. One of very special finds made at the archaeological site of Calixtlahuaca during the 19 and 20 centuries, is a Romanesque figurine, a small terracotta head, unearthed in 1933 during the excavation of a burial offering in the pre-Hispanic settlement of Tacaxacalixlahuaca, located approximately 40 miles NW of Mexico City. How it got to Caxahuaca, 40 kilometers NE of Mexico City, remains a mystery. It is known the artifact is authentic and dates back to the 2nd century. Mysterious Tacaxacalixlahuaca Head – Evidence for Ancient Transoceanic Contact The pre-Columbian transoceanic contact hypothesis has been widely debated in the scientific community. There are some artifacts that strongly suggest people visited America long before Columbus. One of the most trustworthy artifacts proving the case is the small Tacaxacalixlahuaca head of supposed Roman origin found in Mexico back in 1933. In 1933, archaeologist José García Payán discovered a small head with foreign features in a burial at Calixlahuaca, in the Toluca Valley about 60 kilometers WEST of Mexico City. The burial was under two undisturbed cemented floors that antedated the destruction of Calixlahuaca by the Aztecs in AD 1510. Numerous cultural pieces found with the head were identified by García Payán as belonging to the Azteco-Matlacenca period of 1476-1510. Cortés did not land at Veracruz until 1519, and did not conquer the Aztecs until 1521, so that central Mexico was still pre-Hispanic in 1510. The Calixlahuaca Head In 1961, the Austrian anthropologist Robert Hein Geldern examined the head and declared that it derived unquestionably from the Hellenistic Roman school of art. He found that its distinctive naturalism suggested a date around AD 200. Hein Geldern was an expert on Southeast Asia, but he reported in a communication quoted by García Payán, 1961, that his view that it was Roman from circa AD 200 had been confirmed by Professor Boehringer, then president of the German Archaeological Institute. The head was then largely forgotten until 1990, when archaeology student Romeo Hristov began a search for it. Two and a half years later, he located it in storage in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, misclassified as colonial. In an interview in one of the leading Italian newspapers, prompted by the Hristov and Genoves paper, Professor Bernard Andrea, the current director of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, gave his opinion of the head, it is Roman without any doubt. The stylistic examination tells us, more precisely, that it is a Roman work of the second century after Christ. It presents, in the cut of the hair and the shape of the beard, traits typical of the Severian emperors, exactly the fashion of the period.