 I'm a PhD student from University of Warsaw and today I'm going to present some issues connected with Aztec rock art temples, rock art architecture and today I will focus mainly on preliminary results of the studies on especially these rock art temples on two different archaeological sites but starting from scratch something about rock art architecture studies in Mexico actually there is still a lack of information still lack of complex studies about this kind of structures in central Mexico very often researchers omitted this type of construction in their publications and almost all of architectural publications about the Aztecs says that there is only one archaeological site with this kind of architecture and it is Marinalco so that's why they can't do some some complex studies analysis because they have no analogies they have still no information about this kind of architecture and today I'm going to show you that along with our studies on other sites we can see that the Aztecs also use this rock art architecture in different places than Marinalco but starting with Marinalco the famous Aztec site this archaeological zone is located in near to the town of the same name Marinalco and is located on on top of the mountain in Ixtapan area so more or less 100 kilometers on the south from Mexico City the whole place Marinalco also this this place on on top of the mountain and the town was created in the pre Aztec pre Aztec times by the one local community but in the 15th century the Aztecs conquested this this place and changed the changed this town of Marinalco to some kind of garrison some kind of town for their army in the same 15th century the Aztecs probably the Aztecs created also this part of of Marinalco which is actually or probably mainly ceremonial place that consists on seven or more structures almost all of them are full or partially made with a rock art architecture but it's still and but we still need to to make some excavations on the other in this area to look for some other structures uh this ceremonial site is above the the town as I said on on top of the mountain and more or less 200 meters above the city and today I'm going to focus on this construction so the main temple of Marinalco as I said for for the for researchers of the Aztec architecture is the only example of rock art architecture and they are trying to connect the the function of this ceremonial site with the cult of war or cult of warriors but with with our studies on different side of on the side of Tetskotsinko we can see that there are some more examples of that kind of of constructions so I think that it's necessarily to to make some comparative studies to to to look for these analogies that that we need to to make some um um technical or uh I or or interpret the technical analysis or some interpretations of the significance of rock art architecture in Mexico so Tetskotsinko is is the site archaeological site located on the eastern east east from Mexico City uh today the archaeological zone is expanded on two small hills Tetskotsinko and Menteca and this site consists of numerous numerous structures both rock art or partially rock art or rock cut or uh and uh and structures made with this traditional architectural techniques of the Aztecs and we can't we can differentiate here for example uh expanded hydraulic system some temples residential buildings etc is still unknown the function of this site there are plenty of of ideas what was the actual function of of Tetskotsinko but this place was probably also connected with some ceremonial issues so what kind of rock art architecture we have in Tetskotsinko for sure we have uh uh two temples actually they're not full rock cut they have uh they have some some parts made with these traditional techniques that completed the temples also we have uh residential buildings uh that that was made with by combining the rock cut and traditional type of architecture some other elements such as stairs or parts carved in in the rock and this hydraulic system such as channels or the small pools but to to make some comparative studies I will uh I will focus today on these temples two two main temples of Tetskotsinko for uh for see some differences and analogies between Malinalko and Tetskotsinko so a few words about this main temple in Malinalko this is actually the most famous structure in this site it's right after the after entering this site whole structure is was made in in this rocky wall of the mountain the front of the temple is oriented almost perfectly to the south uh and this temple consists of two basic elements uh of first uh we have this pyramidal platform that is very typical for the Aztecs for the Aztec temples and then under this roof we have uh the the main temple the main chamber uh um carved in the uh rock so the platform as I said is very typical because it's uh some kind of of a pyramid but it's probably the only one in the whole uh whole uh central Mexico that is fully made in in rock it consists of this of stairs two two ramps we can see here that the Aztecs refilled the displaces of the rock architecture that was destroyed and it was refilled with the traditional technique so with the stones and lion mortar and also this platform was decorated with three sculptures two on the left and right probably the sculptures of sitting jaguar so war symbol and one today uh today very destroyed uh sculpture on in the center of the stairs these stairs uh with these stairs we can go to the top of the of the platform and here is some kind of also rock cut uh small altar probably used for some public ceremonies for public sacrifices then we can look on the main temple as we see as we can see the temple is forged in the rock in the in the circular form uh this is today's temple's surface but with these ramps and sculptures we can uh we can see that the original surface of the of the rock of the wall was moved by the Aztecs to to create this deeper effect of the temple the the the facade of the the front of the temple was decorated not not so much but but because it was decorated but two simple sculptures it is unusual for the Aztec because normally the ceremonial traditional when we have traditional architecture the ceremonial places where were decorated more than than this type of temple so we can see these two rock cut sculptures one the left one is in the form of war drum the right one is in the form of sipakli so the mythical crocodile-like earth monster and both of the sculptures was the basis of the of other sculpture of seating probably warriors and it's also super untypical because in other temples in traditional temples we we have no such a thing like let's say the guardians of the temple uh on the reconstruction we can also uh let's see that the entrance was uh was carved in the form of serpent-like face uh it was the face of the the earth goddess squad lique and it's very famous and very popular mesoamerican symbol of of the entrance to the cave to the underworld but i will i will go back to this cave symbolism later how how the temple looks is also untypical because normally the normally Aztec temples was rectangular this is circular it is actually really small the diameter is about 16 meters it's also very dark we have no no source of light except of this small doorway whole temple has no rock cut roof it was it was actually open to the to the sky but excavations showed that that probably there there were some kind of organic organic roof that that closed this temple this pretty simple temple consists on this circular bench decorated with some kind of thrones in a form of jaguar and eagles uh in the center a central part we have also uh this eagle-like altar carved in the same rock we can also see these little niches these little holes uh that was probably used for uh lighting the fire to to to make more light inside this temple and as i said before for more more most of the researchers this temple is is uh was was the temple of the celebration of the warriors or the the war because also this jaguar and eagles was this symbol of war there are actually no no complex or deeper technical studies on this temple because most of the researchers said that that this is the only one rock cut temple in central Mexico but with our studies with our project on documentation of other sites the scotzingo we can see that there are some kind of structures some kind of temples that is also made in this kind of with this type of architecture this rock cut architecture so now we can see this main temple that is in the top of the hill uh whole temple you consist on two uh elements one is uh that is uh this upper rock art uh temple probably probably some kind of chamber that now is very destroyed and then we have uh and then we have these two platforms that is made with this traditional traditional stone mortar uh technique that the whole temple was probably made with that uh rock cut walls which and then we can enter to the this flat wall with some kind of anthropogenic cave probably there were also some kind of of sculpture guardians of the entrance of this temple we can see on this side also the other partially rock cut temple it also consists of this of these traditional platforms and uh upper on the top of this platform we have small rectangular chamber very very simple and as we can see very destroyed today carved in the natural rock so what is the differences and similarities or what is the similarities actually between these two sites um i will skip technical issues because i have no time so so i will i will focus sorry i will focus on some interpretation stuff uh because it's more visible so for sure one of the most important feature uh in the rock art architecture of the Aztec was the was um was the place where it was made uh both malinar context was made on the top of the hills a slope of the hills so there is a clear um clear connection between uh between these temples and the symbol is on of the mountain of the Axis Mundi uh so uh with this location uh both temples can can be um symbolically uh uh that this this world pyramids uh also when we connect some features such as this cut liquid air of god's face or this anthropogenic cave and obviously the mountain location we can uh make a mesoamerican semantic complex of cave uh it was one of the most important uh symbol in in the the Aztec worldview or mesoamerican worldview because uh the cave was considered as source of water source of food uh the interest to the underworld are so a fertility symbol and place of human origin and it's interesting that such a strong uh with with the structure some such a strong symbol in the Aztec area that there was no temples in inside the uh natural caves inside uh real caves so probably in these two uh two place malinar that scotsinko uh can be considered as the as artificial caves so uh it will be the maybe the only two uh temples uh that can that it's uh um symbolically represented the cave because it's in uh natural rock it's inside the inside the mountain so then we have these two small chambers when we can when the priest can connect it with the underworld so maybe uh this interpretation of the malinarco of the rock arc um as uh something associated with the war could be wrong because uh we can clearly see that uh that it has to be something deeper something with more level and uh the levels of symbolism and uh we can omit this uh cave symbolism here uh so to finish I will also say that uh in malinarco there was no studies on the hydraulic system but as we can see the caves in the uh in the mesoamerica was the source of water but actually there are some remains of rock art hydraulic system or rock art channels in malinarco but still not uh not analyzed but at the same time in the scotsinko we we have this huge hydraulic system still well preserved uh consists both on the traditional channels and these rock art channels and whole and this whole system in uh in uh scotsinko is connected with this lower rock art temple so probably at the same time uh these cave-like uh uh temples was uh considered as the source of water because we know that uh that people in the scotsinko use this water from this sacred place also to some pragmatic reason so um we still need more analyzes on this uh on these two uh sites to to obtain whole the information about about the rock art significance and also technical studies because now we can try to to make some analyzes uh with the comparison of malinarco with some other places so thank you and sorry for