SHIELD OF WOOD (FRAGMENT) WITH MOSAIC DECORATION
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN HEYE FOUNDATION, NEW YORK
On pl. XXI we reproduce the Vienna shield.[96] It is larger than the London specimen, being 16½ inches in diameter, and the designs are not so involved as in the London shield. Unfortunately the greater part of the mosaic has fallen out, but the figures in most cases may be traced by the impressions in the gum matrix. The designs consist of two tonatiuh, or sun discs, placed one above the other. In the upper tonatiuh is a human figure. There are many examples of this motive in Mexican sculptures and codices. Across the center of the shield, between the two sun discs, is a procession of human figures, four each on the right and the left, all facing the center. Between them is a human figure, head-downward, in the act of falling or plunging from the upper sun disc. Above this line of figures are four others, two on each side of the sun disc, which they face. Below, facing the lower disc, are three other figures on each side, and lower still are two more on each side. The total number of human figures, so far as we are able to determine, is twenty-four. This shield was formerly in the Castle Ambras, near Innsbruck, and its history is traceable to 1596, it being mentioned in an inventory of that date.
We cannot identify these two shields with those described in the Cortés inventories, but there is no reason to doubt that they formed part of that treasure. As examples of mosaic art, they are priceless, even in their damaged condition.
The circumstances attending the discovery of the shields now in New York have already been alluded to. Pl. I is an exact reproduction in colors of one of these, the most important example of aboriginal American mosaic art known. It is in an almost perfect state of preservation, and is practically of the same size as the London specimen, being 12¾ inches in diameter, with an average thickness of three-eighths of an inch. The wood is probably cedar. In a highly esthetic manner the mosaic incrustation has been set in a bed of gum, with alternating massing of light and dark turquoises to produce bands or zones of shading in light or dark bluish-green. It is estimated that nearly 14,000 individual pieces enter into the composition of this mosaic, the greater number being tiny circular bits. The design represents a sun disc, with eight pointers in the outer rim. Inside of the innermost of the two raised narrow encircling bands is a picture of ceremonial or mythological character. We hesitate at an interpretation, but the main features may quite certainly be recognized. We are of the opinion that the scene portrayed perhaps relates to the worship of the planet Venus. It is in the region where this shield was found that Seler, after making exhaustive comparative studies of several pre-Columbian codices, concludes:
We have to look for the home of the Codex Borgia group of manuscripts.... It was a land inhabited by Aztec-speaking peoples; it was conterminous with the Zapotec territory, and it lay on the trade-route which led to the coast, and to the Maya-peopled district of Tabasco.... Indeed we also know that in this very region astronomic observation was highly developed, and the Morning Star (Venus) held in special veneration.[97]
The upper horizontal band of the shield represents the celestial region. It recalls, with its feather fringe at the top and dots hanging from the lower section, the design around the so-called calendar stone collected by Humboldt, now in the Berlin Museum, and the upper encircling rim above the procession of figures of the so-called stone of Tizoc, as well as some of the upper bands in the murals of Mitla. If this is the celestial band, as we believe, it is quite appropriate to find on it the tonatiuh, or sun, represented in the rosette in the center. We find here two sets of four pointers each, radiating from the central disc of feathers, which surrounds a lozenge-shaped piece on which is a tiny pit below two horizontal lines. In the Real Palacio manuscript of Sahagun (estampa XII) are pictures of various symbols for heavenly bodies, one being a small disc with tiny dots, explained by Sahagun as being the sign for Venus. We have endeavored to identify this glyph with that of the symbol for turquois or jewel, or the sign for chalchihuitl. There is a slight resemblance, but we hold the opinion, as before stated, that it is the sign for the sun. We have been unable to find the exact counterpart of this combination either in the codices or in sculptures.
PL. XXVIII
