DOUBLE-HEADED SERPENT OF WOOD WITH MOSAIC DECORATION
BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON
PL. XXXVII
FIGURE OF WOOD WITH MOSAIC DECORATION, GOD XOLOTL
STATE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, VIENNA
The other mosaic on this plate (b) is in the British Museum. It represents a monkey-like head of white wood, with open mouth. The mosaic coating is of turquois, malachite, and other stones. The back has a hemispherical depression coated round the sides with a thick layer of brown gum, smoothly finished, containing some woolen threads. The turquoises are chiefly of the pale-greenish variety, but above the sides of the mouth are two patches of bright-blue stones. Each eye is set in the lower edge of a protuberance coated with malachite, the eyes themselves being convex discs of highly polished iron pyrites set in a ring of shell. Height 4 inches, width 2.7 inches.
An interesting piece is the two-headed jaguar figure in the Ethnographical Museum in Berlin (pl. XXXIV, a).[104] It is covered with bits of turquois and malachite, together with some obsidian, shell, and mother-of-pearl. The eyes are of malachite. This specimen measures 12⅝ inches in length, and the workmanship seems to be very artistic.
An important and unique example of mosaic art is shown on pl. XXXIV, b, which represents a bird’s head embellished with an incrustation of turquois, malachite, obsidian, mother-of-pearl, red coral, and white shell, but much of the mosaic has fallen out. This specimen is in the Museum in Gotha.[105]
A much injured specimen in the British Museum is illustrated on pl. XXXV, which represents an animal on his haunches, with open mouth and protruding tongue. On its back is a circular, cup-like receptacle. It is cut from a hard, pale-brown wood. Almost the entire surface was originally covered with mosaic laid in a bed of black gum, the component pieces being turquois, malachite, pink shell, pearl shell, and fragments of iron pyrites. The cup-shaped receptacle on the back of the animal is now covered with a transparent varnish, except in one place where the black gum and bits of mosaic are still in place. The varnish shows here and there fragments of gold-leaf, perhaps indicating that the cup was once entirely gilded. The height is 6.8 inches.[106]