Notes for Kagan’s drawings.
P03 – the village of Capilco
 20 houses, all pretty similar (small adobe brick, thatch roof)
 On the map, North is to the top. The village is at the base of a big hill to the west.
 The photo of the site is looking west, across the houses and up the hill
 Some houses may have had circular granaries next to them.
P11- Men building a check dam
 Are these photos clear? People often have a tough time visualizing what chack-dams are.
They cross a ravine; The map of Cuexcomate shows them, a series of dams running down
the ravine. The description of their construction in the book (chapter 2, I think) may give
a good idea.
P15: Women shaping and cooking tortillas
 The line drawing is not too bad. The hearth consists of three stones, a metage for grinding
is close by, the comal is a big and flat clay griddle, and in fact the woman in the drawing
is setting the uncooked tortilla down in just the way women do this. She has a big jar in
the background, and also a cradle for her baby. Often several women worked together,
perhaps a mother and a daughter.
 The main focus here is making the tortillas, not the general kitchen (see P30)
P17: The elite residence, group 6
 This is a C-shaped lot platform, on which houses (of adobe brick, thatched roofs) were
built. The open higher platform on the west side was a shrine, so it could have an altar on
it.
 The photo shows the group looking south, before excavation.
P19 – a market scene at Chexcomate
 The color illustration from Scientific American is pretty good. The market is shown in
the main plaza at Cuexcomate, in front of the temple. The other images give an idea of
what things may have been like (piles of goods, etc.)
P28: Irrigation dam, and men cleaning out a cana.
 The idea here is to show one or more men clearing out an irrigation canal. They have to
be cleaned out every year or two, and the dirt and junk gets piled up alongside the canal.
 This could be combined with a stone dam across the river, to show where a canal starts,
but it may be difficult to get into a single image.
P30: Interior of a kitchen
 This overlaps with P15, tortillas. The emphasis here is on the larger kitchen area, not just
cooking tortillas, but also storage jars, some maize on the cob piled up, some pots and
pans (well, all pottery) hanging on the wall or leaning up somewhere, etc. Maybe an
incense burner (long, frying-pan shaped pottery form) in the corner.
 The point here is the total kitchen area, and also similarities between modern peasant
kitchens and the Aztec kitchens I excavated.
 Maybe one woman could be spinning or weaving nearby.
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P33: An obsidian knapper at work
 These guys are knapping either obsidian or chert. But the overall scheme is similar –
sitting down, working over one’s leg or knee, proably with a pad or covering of some
sort, hitting a big chunk of obsidian with a hammerstone.
 I have seen a great drawing of an Aztec making obsidian, but the guy who owns it is
hesitant to let me have a copy.
P35: People building a small temple (about the size as the Cuexcomate temple)
 Here are some images of small Aztec temples – this is a neighborhood temple, not a huge
central temple for the city’s main god. The codex image shows guys carrying stones with
tump lines, which is proably accurate.
P-38 Bronze sewing needles.
 A photo of these will be included in chapter 1. These items play a big role in the book,
and since I end the book with them, it would be good to have a different view. I was
thinking about just a few needles, perhaps sticking out of a small bag or kit. But another
possibility is to have a woman using one of these to sew.
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