Indigenous wall paintings uncovered at Mexican convent

MEXICO CITY — Indigenous symbols like a feather headdress, an axe and a shield have been found under layers of lime plaster at open-air chapels in a convent just south of Mexico City, experts announced Monday. The finds suggest Spanish priests not only altered their church architecture to accommodate the large number of Indigenous converts, but also allowed masons to paint pre-Hispanic designs on the walls. The convent in the town of Tepoztlan dates back to the 1500s, when Spanish Roman Catholic priests built open-air church patios to teach and convert Indigenous groups after the 1521 conquest of Mexico. To attract them, the priests built open-air chapels: a small arched vestibule for officiating the Mass, facing a large open patio surrounded by the four walls of the church patio. The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the paintings were found in three smaller structures known as “Posing Chapels,” built in the four corners of the open patio.