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Question for May 2021

Why did they believe the earth is a turtle?? Asked by St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School. Chosen and answered by Our In-House Team

This is something we refer to constantly in our in-school workshops on both the Maya and the Aztecs and is a natural and good question to ask.
It’s generally accepted that turtles, being aquatic creatures, were widely associated with water in ancient Mesoamerica, with fertility, with music (their shells were often used as drums - some believe in order to imitate the rumble of thunder and heavy rain drops), with the underworld (many turtles ‘live in and emerge from a dark and watery netherworld’ - Benson), and with the earth. Why with the earth?
There’s no doubt that the rounded earth was widely imagined as ‘the rugged back of an earth monster (sometimes depicted as a partially submerged crocodilian creature or a turtle’ (Toby Evans), and that the turtle was seen as an ‘apt metaphor for the first emergence of earth from the primordial sea’ (McEwan). A number of Maya stone altars are carved in the form of turtles, and the Maya Malze God is ‘often represented rising out of the turtle shell earth’ (Miller & Taube). In this famous ‘Resurrection’ scene (see pic 1), the maize god represents human beings sprouting out from, being born out of a split turtle-shell earth.

‘The turtle carapace [shell] - probably an adaptation to life under water or under ground - may be the idealised image of a cosmic house; it resembles rocks, which are often sacred, and has the rugged texture of the earth. A turtle is widely thought to be a support for the world, a metaphor for earth... (pic 2).
’Maya sculptures in turtle form are common in the Yucatán Peninsula, where sea and land turtles were significant, especially at the Postclassic site of Mayapán (c. 1200 CE), where they may have been considered ancestral animals. Turtles living in cenotes (sinkholes in the limestone that are sources of water in Yucatán) are sacred; offerings for rain are made to them. Turtles are said to weep when there is drought, and their tears bring rain; if a turtle is harmed, drought may ensue.

‘The Zapotec people apparently conceived of their ancestors as turtles descending from clouds or as turtle-shaped clouds - perhaps in part a reference to rain and fertility... The turtle’s longevity (some have lived at least 150 years) may underlie their relationships with gods, ancestors, and kings.
’Mexica (Aztec) sculpture shows human-turtle figures [see pic 3]; in excavations in the Templo Mayor, which today lies under modern Mexico City, turtle shells were found in quantity in elaborate fertility-related offerings. Cast-gold beads and pendants of that period often took the form of turtle shells’ (Benson).

Turtle shells found in burial offerings were probably used in funerary rites.
As we mentioned above, turtle shells were widely used for musical instruments - drums, rattles and resonators - and we plan to upload an entry on the ayotl (turtle-shell drum) soon...

Key source:-
• ‘Turtle’, entry by Elizabeth P. Benson in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures edited by David Carrasco, vol. 3, OUP, 2001, pp.277-279
Other sources quoted:-
• Ancient Mexico & Central America: Archaeology and Culture History by Susan Toby Evans, Thames & Hudson, London 2004
• The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya by Mary Miller and Karl Taube, Thames & Hudson, London, 1993
• Ancient Mexico in the British Museum by Colin McEwan, British Museum Press, 1994
• Reading Maya Art by Andrea Stone and Marc Zender, Thames & Hudson, London, 2011
• ‘Chichén Itzá - guía visual’, Arqueología Mexicana, special edition no. 27, Mexico City, April 2008.

Picture sources:-
• Pic 1 (top): photo by, courtesy of and thanks to Justin Kerr, from the Mayavase database (mayavase.com)
• Pic 1 (bottom): image scanned from Reading Maya Art (see above)
• Pic 2: photos by Jorge Pérez de Lara, scanned from Arqueología Mexicana (see above)
• Pic 3: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 4: illustration scanned from Ancient Mexico in the British Museum (see above).

Our In-House Team has answered 25 questions altogether.

Comments (1)

E

Eli

26th Mar 2023

I’ve looked at several different sources for the creation myth of the earth and I’ve noticed that the entity that they use to make earth varies. Sometimes it’s a giant fish, or a croc, or a turtle why do they have different interpretations of what the earth was constructed out of?

M

Mexicolore

Good question! The earth we know was often regarded as a living entity, and all these creatures - caiman, turtle, fish... - have always been important to the local inhabitants for different reasons. But the earth was also believed (by the Maya) to be a flat, four-sided field, mirroring a maize field, in preparation for people to be ‘planted’ on its surface, and it was also conceived of as a giant round disk. We must find out more...

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