Assemblage of Projectile Points, Blades, Eccentrics, and Figurines

This rare assemblage of 58 individually carved obsidian objects includes miniature versions of blades, arrowheads, humans, and serpents. Obsidian was an important commodity in Teotihuacan’s economy. Its production and export as a cutting tool accounts in part for the city’s meteoric rise in roughly the 1st to 3rd centuries CE. Symbolically, obsidian came to represent Teotihuacan’s expanding military presence in other parts of Mesoamerica. The hypothetical arrangement seen here is based on offerings from one of Teotihuacan’s main pyramids, where larger blades and serpents surround a central figure. Circular patterns found at Teotihuacan often relate to the overall alignment of the city’s grid at 15.5 degrees east of north. An offering such as this may have expressed a shared ideology between Teotihuacan and an allied center in the Valley of Mexico.