Page 561 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

wears a red band, which is adorned with two blue
crescents and a blue bird in the center. Her head-
dress takes the form of a diadem consisting of
nine large, ocher-colored plates that symbolize
feathers. She wears a nose ornament, in the form
of a horizontal polychromed bar with two round
blue plates, and large circular earrings. Her face is
painted black, her eyebrows are blue and adorned
with circles of different colors, and an ocher band
appears near her mouth. She wears a polychromed
quechquemitl with a border decorated with the
motif of hands. Two red and blue ribbons fall
from the garment's center, and from the rear
emerge two bands with black rhombuses, circles,
and tassels. Bird's claws spring from the figure's
knees, and she wears sandals with tassels on the
heels. Twenty-four triangular tassels adorn the
brazier's upper edge.
Censers of this type were used to burn copal
resin, the sacred incense of all the Mesoamerican
peoples. Copal smoke was considered to be the
medium through which humans communicated
with the gods. E.M.M.

383

SHIELD

Mixtec-Aztec
wood, turquoise
2
diameter 31.8 fi2 /2J
National Museum of the American Indian,
Smithsonian Institution

According to Saville (1922, 47), who was the first
to describe this shield, it was found somewhere in
the Mixteca region of Puebla in a deposit of cere-
monial objects of wood, seventeen of which were

blue-green used for the wrists and eye cavities. 382
Although it was found in pieces, the statue had
been repaired at one time with a natural resin. ANTHROPOMORPHIC BRAZIER
With one of his hands this monkey holds down
its tail, and in the other it holds some object that Aztec
polychromed earthenware
unfortunately has broken off. The animal is a 91 x 76 x 57.5 (35 /s x 29% x 22 /s)
5
7
pregnant female, which curiously appears to be
defecating. Pregnancy, childbirth, and excrement CNCA—INAH—MEX, Museo Templo Mayor,
(which also symbolized gold) were traditionally Mexico City
associated with the wind that brings rain and
thereby fertility to the earth. F.S. and M.D.C. This elaborate temple vessel is decorated with a
figure in relief representing a mysterious stand-
ing female, whose extended arms and fleshless
face emerge from the head of a bird. The figure

560 CIRCA 1492