‘Epistemography’ and Archaeological Assembling. A Manifesto for Media.
Science and Technology Studies of Archaeology, University of Oxford
In 1922 the Mexican scholar Arreola published a study of maps and images which he had recovered from archives in Mexico City. Much of the material that he presented had not been studied before. Much of it was quite old, some of it dating to the initial conquest and consolidation of Mexico by the Spanish. One of these images was very old, even for being a copy of a lost original. It was called the ‘Mazapan Map’ and the original was estimated to have been rendered around 1560. It was part of 16th century records of farmlands and land ownership. The use of Nahuatl glyphs, the pictographic-ideographic language of the Aztecs, designating holdings and landowners, suggests it was most likely commissioned by the Spanish as part of reconnoitering their newly expanded empire.
'Mazapan Map'
The ruins of Teotihuacan cover the bottom portion of the ‘map’. The Pyramid of the Moon is at bottom left and the Pyramid of the Sun is at the bottom center. To the bottom right, the large, open rectangular shape of the ciudadela (1).
A ‘map’ complementary to the Mazapan was published two decades later in 1580. It was part of the relación geográfica de San Juan Teotihuacán. This map, rather than landholdings, emphasizes imperial infrastructure: the Spanish grafted over the Aztec. The road network emanates from the Aztec (and later Spanish) administrative center (Tenochtítlan) to the regions on the north of the Valley of Mexico. Like the Mazapan map, it also orients north to the left for the map-reader. Tenochtítlan can be seen at the crossroads (center right). The ruins of Teotihuacan are shown (highlighted in box) near the center, approximating the correct geographical relationship to the administrative capital, with the distinctive layout of the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon and the avenida de los muertos (avenue of the dead) outlined by smaller structures.
'Map' from the relación geográfica de San Juan Teotihuacán
Rather than Nahuatl glyphs, the map’s labels are presented entirely in Spanish. A testament to the rapid changes in the intervening twenty years of Spanish domination of the region. The ruins of Teotihuacan are labeled Moctezuma’s oracle, which the accompanying text of the relación explains is a place of pilgrimage for the Aztec ruler and his priests. A place to offer sacrifices. The Aztec oracle is mentioned in other post-Conquest texts, and this map suggests that Teotihuacan was the place of the imperial prognosticator (2).
Now, fascinating as both of these maps may be, contemporary archaeologists at the site do not unfurl them when they lay out new excavation trenches. Nor would they use them for navigating the complex and monumental ruins. Indeed, art historians show more interest in them than site archaeologists. Simply put, they are not good maps.
In this short paper I want to pursue why they are not considered proper maps. This could take us down the road of theories of correspondence, art historical analyses of single-point perspective, the development of the astrolabe and other instruments or even information design - all great pursuits. I want to lodge their consideration, however, with why quotation marks bookend these maps: epistemology. To do this I am going to unpack several closely related propositions.
PROPOSITIONS
1) Epistemology has been wrongly scapegoated.
2) An archaeological commitment to things, to ontology, resuscitates its alter ego as ‘epistemography’.
3) Knowing the past is assembling past.
4) Epistemography is the past made durable.
To unpack this series of propositions I will come back to these proto-historic, historic and contemporary maps of Teotihuacan. These media cascades aid in manifesting the practice of archaeological assembling and the principle of ‘epistemography’.
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