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Location: Said to be from ruins on the [south] slope of Cerro el Vigia, moved first to Santiago Tuxtla and later to San Andres Tuxtla (Frielaender 1923:165).
Associations: Forms part of a set with Totogal Monuments 3 and 4.
Condition: Right ear is broken, tip of nose is chipped.
Photographs: Present report, Plate 60; Blom and la Farge 1926: Figure 16.
Drawings: None.
Carved Areas: Sculpture in the round.
Material: According to Friedlaender "the famous old sculptures were made from [Cerro el Vigia's] Olivine lava" (Friedlaender 1923:165, Author's trans.).
Dimensions: Height 61 cm, Width 60 cm, Depth 84 cm.
Description: Monument 2 is a zoomorph with an open mouth that reveals large rodential incisors. The muzzle is swollen and the roots of whiskers are indicated by undulating horizontal incisions. The nose is raised above the muzzle but the nostrils have exfoliated. The eyes are outlined by circular incisions and protrude from the shallow raised forehead. Small round ears appear at the upper rear of the cranium.
Remarks: Totogal Monuments 2-4 are virtually identical depictions of rodents. This rodent theme also appears at Matacanela where a cruder example appears as a tenoned bust, complete with incised digits on its truncated forelimbs and at Cerro el Vigia where Monument 4 is a petroglyphic rabbit head. Seler-Sachs, Friedlaender and Blom and la Farge all note that the subject matter of Totogal Monuments 2-4, Cerro el Vigia Monument 4 and the Matacanela sculpture, a rabbit, represents the name of the region, Tuxtla, from toxtli "rabbit" in Nahuatl (Seler-Sachs 1922:544, Friedlaender 1923:167, Blom and la Farge 1926:19).
