Izapa Stela 5

[5] Researcher Garth Norman, for example, has counted "at least 12" human figures, a dozen animals, over 25 botanical or inanimate objects, and 9 stylized deity masks.

Like much of Izapan monumental sculpture, the subject matter of Stela 5 is considered mythological and religious in nature[6] and is executed with a stylized opulence.

[8] Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller further propose that the stela records a creation myth, with barely formed humans emerging from a hole drilled into the tree's left side.

[9] Julia Guernsey Kappelman, on the other hand, suggests the seated figures are Izapa elites conducting ritual activities in a "quasi-historical scene", which is framed by, and placed in the context of, the "symbolic landscape of creation".

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints archeologist M. Wells Jakeman proposed that the image was a representation of a tree of life vision found in the Book of Mormon.