Sep 23 2025

Mexico: British Museum


British Museum
Great Russell St,
London WC1B 3DG, UK

… more pix here

The Mexican / Mayan wing at the British Museum is at Room 27. Their Maya Research Project is done with Google Arts & Culture (funding from Google?), digiting the Maudslay Collection of Victorian casts and many photos of Maya site. Alfred Maudslay (1850-1931) was a British archaelogist, who pioneered the Mayan ruins study.

Stone Rattlesnake

Aztec, AD 1300-1521

This realistic depiction of a rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus) accurately records many important anatomical details. The Aztecs carved naturalistic sculptures of selected reptiles, birds and insects, suggesting that their life cycles and habits were closely observed. On this snake the small circular cavities on either side of the head between the nostrils and the eyes are the external openings to highly effective heat sensors, enabling the snake to locate and strike at prey in complete darkness.

The hole visible on the floor of the mouth is the trachea. In snakes this is movable, so that when a snake is ingesting its prey, the trachea moves forward to enable it to continue to breathe. The traces of red pigment on the right nostril and mouth and the red dots on the surfaces of the ventral coils may allude to the coloured skin of some species of rattlesnakes. The rattle consists of thirteen segments. Each time the snake sheds its skin a new segment is produced.

Ethno. 1849.6-29.1 (Wetherell collection).

 

Stone vessel

Classic Veracruz, AD 300-1200

The scenes carved on the four sides of this vessel depict two protagonists engaged in a formal contest over a severed trophy head with a tassled plume of long hair. The left hand figuro always wears a distinctive nose ornament that extends across his cheek, while the fanged jaws of his opponent emphasise his supernatural powers. The ritual sequence can be ‘rend’ beginning with the panel on the left side and following the direction which the trophy head is facing. The confrontation is played out in a series of arm gestures which are the mirror image of each other, and change in synchronised fashion from panel to panel. Subtle variations in the costume and headdress of each figure reveal a series of complementary oppositions that echo and elaborate upon the visual language of the arm gestures. On the back panel the sequence culminates in a gesture of mutual recognition and presentation. It seems likely that the vessel held a liquid, perhaps the fermented maguey beverage pulque. The object may have served a ritual function in a round of ceremonies celebrated at certain times of the year.

Ethno Q 19 Am 3

 

5 Lintels, Maya, 755 to 770

 

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