Page 565 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

more open trapezoids, the final one inverted and
showing only its spinelike apex. This trapezoidal
device is the well-known year sign, standing for
the solar year.
On almost all examples of the fire serpent there
are two or more horizontal paper strips, each with
a knot in the middle, arranged in a vertical stack
and placed between the body and the "year-sign"
tail. This device, which is also to be found on the
exterior of several stone cuauhxicallis (containers
for human hearts), has long puzzled Aztec special-
ists, but is now well known to Maya iconogra-
phers. It was David Joralemon (1974) who first
identified this device as the preeminent sign of
blood and blood sacrifice among the classic Maya,
found on ritual bloodletters and elsewhere; the
stack of knots symbol retained this function
through the Maya-Toltec period at Chichen and
in the late post-classic codices. It may well have
been that the stack of knots was transmitted to the
Aztecs from the Maya through the Toltecs, for it
is also very common at the Toltec capital, Tula.
This symbol raises the question of just what is
being portrayed on the present sculpture. The
Xiuhcoatl is undulating down a trapezoidal stone,
surely an unusual posture for a creature supposed
to be traveling upward with the sun. But the base
itself is surely intended to represent a sacrificial
stone, over which victims were stretched face-up
to have their chests opened by the obsidian or flint
knife: it virtually duplicates the sacrificial stone
found on the Huitzilopochtli side of the Great
Temple during the recent excavations. The stack of
knots symbol strongly suggests that the Xiuhcoatl
had a sanguinary function during human sacrifice,
namely to descend from the sky and receive the
offering of the warrior's heart and blood as a rep-
resentative of Huitzilopochtli-Tonatiuh, the fifth
sun of our own creation. M.D.C.

389-393

SACRIFICIAL KNIVES

Aztec

388 389: silica, obsidian, copal
for in stone monuments and in representations 22 X 6 X 3.9 (8 /8 X 2 /8 X ! /2)
2
3
5
XlUHCOATL in the codices the creature is more like a dragon,
usually having forelimbs. The root jdw/i-has many 390: silica, obsidian
Aztec 23.4 X 6.7 X 1.1 fpVfi Jt 2% X /2)
l
volcanic stone meanings in Nahuatl; derived from the noun 391: silica, obsidian, copal
3
7
2
75.5 X 60.5 X 56.5 (29 /4 X 23 /8 J 22 /4J xihuitl, it signifies fire, the year, grass, and comet.
5
As seen here, on the Calendar Stone, and in 17.5 X 6.7 J 1.5 (6 /8 X 2 /8 X /2)
l
7
T/ie Trustees of the British Museum, London codices like the Borgia, the Xiuhcoatl has gaping 392: silica, obsidian, copal
jaws and an upturned snout lined with stars; since 15 X 5-2 J 3.8 (5% X 2 J 1 /2J
2
The Xiuhcoatl (fire serpent) was an avatar of the latter usually number between six and eight,
Xiuhtecuhtli, the old fire god, with the task of it is quite probable that these represent the 393: silica, obsidian, copal
5
3
3
conducting the sun on its daily journey from the Pleiades, an extremely important star cluster in 19.5 £ 7 X 3.6 (7 /8 X 2 /4 X 1 /8J
eastern horizon to the zenith. The coatl (snake) Aztec astronomical thought. The body of the CJVCA—INAH— MEX, Museo Temp/o Mayor,
designation in the name is somewhat misleading, creature is always segmented, ending with one or Mexico City
564 CIRCA 1492