Relief with the Cholula coat of arms

Here, a coat of arms for the central Mexican city of Cholula, granted by the Spanish king Charles V, has been modified by an Indigenous carver to incorporate local references. In the upper-left quadrant, the city’s Great Pyramid, a massive pre-Hispanic platform built of adobe bricks, is crowned by a Christian cross. Below, a European-style trumpet is nestled inside a hill, alluding to shell trumpets that were found buried in the platform. In the upper-right quadrant, the artist replaced the herald’s original lion motif with a bell, which may symbolize the church that was built on top of the pyramid in 1535 ce. The last frame shows the plants that grew at the pyramid’s base and gave the town its Nahuatl name: Cholollan Tollan, or “The Ancient City of Great Prestige Among the Reeds.”