What do the
T-shaped doorways of the 4-Corners area and the I-shaped ballcourts of
Mesoamerica have in common. Just possibly the Hohokam pipette symbol is what
they have in common, or more precisely, perhaps both of those shapes influenced
the development of the pipette symbol.
T-SHAPES: Lekson states quite unequivocably that the T-shaped doorway originated in the 4-corners region in the areas influenced by Chaco Canyon and spread from there. “And we can say with some confidence that T-shaped doors began at Chaco, proliferated across the Four Corners during Aztec’s era, and all but disappeared from the northern Southwest at the same time they reappeared far to the south, at Paquime and the Casas Grandes region. T-doors are, indeed, all over the map, but in sequence: T-doors followed the Chaco-Aztec-Paquima meridian. If some enterprising graduate student crossed their eyes and dotted the Ts into a GIS with time periods, they would pop up first around Chaco and at a few of its outliers, then show strongly at Aztec and throughout its region, and finally all but vanish in the north and explode at Paquime and all over northern Chihuahua.” (Lekson 2015:85) The T-shape is not only seen in doorways in the American southwest. There are also examples found in rock art in various locations.
Callis (2021) sees the influence as having gone the other way. “It is proposed here that the T- or Tau-shaped doors so emblematic of Southwestern architecture after AD 1000 are the result of that contact. T-shapes similar to those in the North American Southwest are found as wall perforations at the late Classic – and highly unique – site of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. Furthermore, although not readily evident, the doorways of many Terminal Classic Maya structures also incorporate the T-shape. T-shapes are also found as architectural elements in other features, such as friezes, throughout Mesoamerica. That the T-shape is a representation of the Mayan glyph Ik’ – that signifies both wind and breath and, by extension, life or spirit – is widely accepted within the Mesoamerican context. This paper demonstrates through comparison with Maya and other Mesoamerican architecture, as well as analysis of known Southwest-Mesoamerican contacts and known instances of cultural diffusion, that these Mayan T-shapes, the most basic form of the Mayan glyph Ik’, also inspired the T-shaped doors of the Southwest.” (Callis 2021:1)
What we do know is that whichever way the influence of the T-shaped door went it can be found both to the north and the south of the Hohokam region so it is certain that they were exposed to it and knew of it.
PIPETTES: The pipette symbol is centered on the Hohokam region (although examples have been found farther away). Pipettes are basically a series of squares connected by a central passage. Wright and Russell (2011) illustrate approximately 60 pipettes from rock art sites in their paper (incidentally they also include five T-shapes, supposedly as half pipettes, and a few images that I did not include in this count because I just cannot agree with their identification of the symbol as a pipette). In their paper Wright and Russell mostly picture pipettes with two (28) or three (24) lobes, although they also have a single square they so identify as well as some with four (5) and five (3) lobes.
“We submit that the
compartmentalization of the cosmos into containers was a conceptual metaphor of the tiered cosmos.
This metaphor was embedded in the Uto-Aztecan language shared across
Mesoamerica and the Greater Southwest and materialized in pipette symbolism.
The distribution of the pipette compares favorably with the spatial extent of
Wilcox’s (1987) ‘Mesoamerican cosmological metastructure’, supporting our
assertion that the pipette was a key symbol of this religious structure with
roots in Mesoamerica. While there is no evidence for pipette imagery in
Southwestern material culture prior to AD 600, scenes of transcendence are
known from Archaic Chihuahuan contexts.” (Wright and Russell 2011:377-8) In other words Wright
and Russell are suggesting that the pipette symbol represents tiers of the
cosmos with a passage up through them (for the entry of humans). This does not,
however, account for the facts that the pipette symbol is so similar to the
I-shaped ballcourt of Mesoamerica, and the fact that Mesoamerican culture had a
large influence on Hohokam culture, including ball courts.
BALLCOURTS: One of the iconic features of Mesoamerican urban sites is the ballcourt. Many of these were formed in the shape of the capital letter “I”.
“In contrast to the lowlands, the first highland ballcourts date to over a millennium after the Paso de la Amada court. The first securely dated full-sized ballcourts, from the end of the Middle Formative (600 to 500 BCE, occur at the central Mexican highland sites of Capulac Concepcion and La Laguna. While exhibiting different orientations, both courts have similar sizes and shapes: lateral mounds terminate in closed ‘end zones,’ giving the court, in plan view, the I shape so typical of later ballcourts throughout Mesoamerica. In Oaxaca, I-shaped ballcourts, interpreted as boundary and defensive mechanisms associated with a state game centered at the Zapotec urban center of Monte Alban, first appeared in the final portion of the Late Formative.” (Blomster and Chavez 2020) While these are named Ballcourts, and we certainly believe that the Mesoamerican ball games were conducted in them, they are also believed to have served a number of other functions, ritual and otherwise.
So, with the main sequence of construction (with T-shaped doors) at Chaco occurring between 850 and 1125 CE, and with the peak of Hohokam culture dating from between 850 and 1400 CE, and with Mesoamerican ballcourts recorded from 1400 BCE to the 1500s CE we have sufficient time overlap for the influences from the north and the south to come together with the Hohokam, resulting in the pipette symbol.
So is the T-shape half of an I-shaped ballcourt? Is a two-lobed pipette a I-shaped ballcourt, or two T-shapes together end to end? Is a three-lobed pipette a ballcourt and a T-shaped doorway connected? I really cannot say, although I do believe that those more conversant with Hohokam than I should take a detailed look at it. What I can say is that with the influences from both the north and the south converging on Hohokam that amalgam is certainly a possibility.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Blomster, Jeffrey P. and Victor E. Salazar Chavez, 2020, Origins of the Mesoamerican ballgame: Earliest ballcourt from the highlands found at Etlatongo, Oaxaca, Mexico, 13 March 202o, Science Advances, Vol. 6, No. 11, KOI”10.1126/sciadv.aay6964
Callis, Marc, 2021, Ik’ Way: The Mayan Origin of T-Shaped Doors in the North American Southwest, Southwestern Lore, Summer 2021, Colorado Archaeological Society
Lekson, Stephen H., 2015, The Chaco Meridian: One Thousand Years of Political and Religious Power in the Ancient Southwest, Rowman and Littlefield, Boulder, Colo.
Wright, Aaron M. and Will G. Russell, 2011, The Pipette, the Tiered Cosmos, and the Materialization of Transcendence in the Rock Art of the North American Southwest, Journal of Social Archaeology, 11(3), pages 361-386
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I've posted on my blog tartariatablets.com that T-shape of Gobekli Tepe pillars is connected to sumerian proto-cuneiform sign T=Me:"to be, beiing".My proposal is that T stones inhabited life spirits.Thats why thevpillar shape has antropomorphic traits.Somebody noticed that:"an H or capital I is composed of two connected T's.As old chinese character T is below and that upside-down is above, then H and I are connection of above and below".I said then H/I could be (whole) Cosmos.Gobekli Tepe T-pillars and American T doors and windows as well T and I and pipette glyphs are related to soul.Some Gobekli Tepe pillars has holes wich have the same purpise as T doors and windows, there are seelenloch, soul holes.T windowscis the mouth of the house through ultimate breath, soul exits.T doors and windows are passage holes through wich souls could pass. The shape is T at Gobekli Tepe and in Americas cause the human spirit was without definite shape,amorphe a ghost but somehow close to human body or torso.As + true cross,T shape is expressing power (strong torso,hammer ?).
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