Broken column

Professor Zero calls our attention to the uncovering of a monolith of the diety Tlaloc in Mexico City, very near the Museo del Templo Mayor, (explore the museum with this virtual tour). This is a major archaeological find, and part of the ongoing re-interpretation of Mexico.

Twenty-nine years ago, while excavating for a new metro station next to the Cathedral, a monolithic image was uncovered, a massive stone disc carved with a representation of the dismembered body of the Moon Goddess, Coyolxauhqui. It turned out to be part of the Great Temple (the Templo Mayor) long thought to be underneath the Cathedral itself.

The archaeolgoical dig, the image of a woman's broken body, bring to mind Frida Kahlo's painting The Broken Column. Another revelation in Mexico City: last year, a room that had remained closed for over fifty years was opened in the Casa Azul. Apparently, Dolores Olmedo had given orders that the door was to remain locked, and it did until her death in 2002, and until a new museum director asked what was behind it. It was a bathroom used to store a host of objects and most of Frida's clothing, now being restored. Someo of the other objects found inside include hundreds of photographs taken by Frida's father, a pair of earrings given to her by Picasso, her prosthetic leg, her pain medications, the various corsets she had to wear after her many operations.