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Disk

Artist POST-CLASSIC/MEXICO

Date900-1520 A.D.

Mediumclay

ClassificationsMaterials

Credit LineGift of Henry Schnakenberg

Object number1964.2.37

DescriptionFlat fragment from the bottom of a polychrome plate, trimmed to form a roundel but with a piece broken off at lower left. Light brown clay, the vessel interior slipped in orange and white and painted in red, yellow, black, white and purple on an orange ground. The roundel is decorated with a masked figure in the style of Mixtteco-Puebla pictorial manuscripts: cholula was a center of manufacture during Post-Classic times for pottery decorated in this manuscript style, a luxury item in demand at the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and probably an important tribute item from the Puebla area and Mixteca Alta during Aztec imperial times (1440-1520). The figure is outlined in black, wears a death's head mask and a headdress decorated with cotton balls and stingray spines (associated with autosacrifice). The arms and legs end in animal hoofs or paws (?) with jaguar spots, and the figure has a fish or serpent tail (incomplete due to break) and the glyph 4 Acatl (reed) at lower right.

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