The serpent labret with articulated tongue is a gold Azteclip plug from the mid-second millennium AD. Designed to be inserted in a piercing below the lower lip, it depicts a fanged serpent preparing to strike, with a bifurcated tongue hanging from its mouth. The tongue, which is moveable and retractable, would have swung from side to side with its wearer's movements. According to a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the labret is "perhaps the finest Aztec gold ornament to survive the crucibles of the sixteenth century".[1]
Labrets were associated with the nobility in Aztec culture, worn by rulers and meted out as honours; even then, gold labrets likely remained the province of the élite. Gold was a hallmark of divinity—"the excrement of the sun", left behind as it traversed the underworld at night—and eloquence a hallmark of nobility: the title for the leader of the Aztec Empire was huei tlahtoani, literally "Great Speaker". The serpent, too, may represent Xiuhcoatl, the fire serpent wielded as a weapon by the sun god Huītzilōpōchtli. Worn prominently on the face, the labret likely symbolised the wearer's status and eloquence, and possibly divine right.
The labret is dated to 1300–1521, the period during which the Aztecs flourished. Consisting of a gold–copper–silver alloy, it was made by lost-wax casting; although such goldwork is traditionally ascribed to Mixtec makers, the Aztecs, particularly by the time of the Aztec Empire, may have also had their own sophisticated goldworking workshops. The labret was known by 1937, when it was placed on long-term loan at the American Museum of Natural History; it spent much of its succeeding history in private hands but on display, then was purchased in 2016 by the Met.
The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico from around 1300 to 1521 AD. According to legend, the broad strokes of which find some support in the written and archaeological record, the Aztecs founded Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City) on an island in Lake Texcoco in 1325, following several centuries of migration from Aztlán—a spot perhaps to the northwest of Mexico City and the origin of the name "Aztec", literally "person of Aztlán".[2][3][4] In 1428, after a century of various alliances and friction with the surrounding populations, the Aztec Empire was founded.[5] Also known as the Triple Alliance, the Empire was a coalition of the city-states Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan.[6]
The Aztec Empire exacted a heavy tribute (or tax) of gold from the surrounding regions—perhaps amounting to 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) a year—and the Aztecs had a rich tradition of goldwork to match.[7] The manufacture of such objects at this time has traditionally been attributed to the Mixtecs to the south, or to Mixtec makers stationed in Tenochtitlan.[8][9][10] More recent research has suggested that the Aztecs had their own sophisticated goldworking operation, particularly by the end of the fifteenth century.[11][12]
Though the gold tribute would have been sufficient to manufacture tens of thousands of small- to medium-sized ornaments each year, fewer than 400 survive.[13] In 1519, the Spanish conquistadorHernán Cortés landed on the shores of Mexico, and by 1521, he had decimated the Aztec Empire.[14] The Spanish were taken by, and took, the luxury that they found; seeing the gold and silver, Cortés wrote that "no smith in the world could have done better".[15] The German artist Albrecht Dürer, who saw some of the plunder that was shipped back, claimed that "[i]n all my life I have never seen anything that has so delighted my heart as did these objects; for there I saw strange works of art and have been left amazed by the subtle inventiveness of the men of far off lands."[16] "Maddeningly enough," however, wrote the curator Jay Levenson, "although Diirer appears always to have had a sketchbook with him, no drawings of his are known of the now-lost masterpieces which he described."[17] Almost all of the gold was swiftly melted down, and turned into ingots.[1]
Labrets, or lip plugs, are a type of jewellery inserted through a piercing below the lower lip.[1] Called tentetl in the Aztec language Nahuatl, labrets were associated with status and power.[1] The Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, writing in the Florentine Codex, records a labret as among Moctezuma II's coronation regalia.[18] The Dominican friar Diego Durán, meanwhile, writing in The History of the Indies of New Spain, records labrets as among the presents Moctezuma bestowed upon visiting lords for the occasion.[19] Other such regalia and gifts included diadems in turquoise and gold, bracelets, calf bands, ear ornaments, and ear and nose plugs.[20] Labrets were also awarded with the honours afforded successful warriors—the Codex Mendoza depicts the highest-ranking noble-warriors wearing long, hanging labrets—and merchants who returned from perilous trips to foreign lands were sometimes rewarded by being permitted to wear gold ornaments and amber labrets to mark themselves among the nobility.[21][1]
The link between labrets and the nobility may have been reinforced by the link between the nobility and eloquence.[22][1] The title for the leader of the Aztec Empire was huei tlahtoani, literally "Great Speaker".[22][1] Eloquence was expected of nobles; according to Durán, noble children "were told to speak without stuttering, without nervousness or haste".[23] Positioned on the face directly below the lips, labrets likely highlighted the eloquence expected of nobles, and underscored their right to speak and be heard.[22][1][24]
The eagle labret held by the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica mirrors the one worn by Nezahualcoyotl in the Codex Ixtlilxochitl.
The labret is 2.625 in (6.67 cm) high, 1.75 in (4.4 cm) wide, 2.625 in (6.67 cm) deep, and weighs 1.81 ounces (51 g).[1] It is hollow, and made of an alloy of 59.3 to 64.3% gold, 26.8 to 33.1% copper, and 7.5 to 8.8% silver.[1][38]
The piece is shaped like a serpent preparing to strike, with a curled eyebrow and snout, serrated teeth, two fangs, and bifurcated tongue.[1] The snout is large, with rounded nostrils, while the eyes are set under a pronounced supraorbital plate.[1] The tongue was cast to hang freely, allowing it to be retracted or extended, and for it to swing from side to side with the movement of its wearer.[1] The underside of the lower jaw is covered in scales; atop the head is depicted a feathered and beaded headdress, represented in false filigree by a circle of ten spheres from which extend three loops.[1] The circles surround a small recess, perhaps once inlaid with stone.[1] The serpent is attached to a cylindrical plug, decorated with a ring of small spheres and spirals, which has a wide and plain flange to hold the labret in place within the wearer's mouth.[1]
The labret, according to the Met curator Joanne Pillsbury, is "perhaps the finest Aztec gold ornament to survive the crucibles of the sixteenth century".[1][10] It is a rare example not just of ancient goldworking, but of the highest levels of Aztec culture, "a world almost entirely obliterated when Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico in 1519".[1]
Symbolism
Serpents were a longstanding motif of Mesoamerican art, appearing since at least the second millennium BC.[1][39] They were particularly associated with rulers, in part because of the perception that snakes were able to transcend realms, from earth, to water, to sky.[1] The labret's snout and curled eyebrows, and the feathered headdress, indicate that the piece may depict Xiuhcoatl, a mythological fire serpent wielded as a weapon by the sun god Huītzilōpōchtli.[1]
The labret's material, gold, likely also carried symbolic weight.[1] According to Sahagún, Aztecs considered gold to be Tōnatiuh icuitl, the "excrement of the sun",[note 1] left behind as he traversed the underworld at night.[41][25] Such labrets, especially when worn with other gold objects, would likely have evoked a connection with divinity, and implied a ruler's divine right.[25][1]
Manufacture
The labret is dated to 1300–1521, reflecting the period of time in which the Aztecs flourished,[1] and could be of Mixtec or Aztec origin.[39] It was made via lost-wax casting in three pieces.[38][1][note 2] The tongue would have been cast first, then filed and polished.[38] The head and neck piece would then have been prepared for casting, with the finished tongue inserted into the core.[38] The core was engraved, with the head and neck modeled in wax; comma-shaped marks in the metal show where the maker used a tool to press the wax in the core's grooves.[38] The already-cast tongue appears to have shifted during the process, displacing the wax from the top of the maxillary arch.[38] Three holes 4 mm (0.16 in) in diameter—one behind the beck, one below the jaw, one below the body—show where something such as wood or thorns was used to support the core.[38] With the head and body cast, the third and final piece would have been the plug with flange.[38]
Provenance
The early history of the labret is unknown.[39] It was acquired by 1937 by Heath McClung Steele, an executive at American Metal Company, and held until 1949.[42] His children—Margaret Truman Fahnestock,[43] Heath Warren Steele,[44] and David Truman Steele[45]—next held it until 1978.[1] The labret was then sold at Sotheby's in New York on 22 November 1978 for $101,000 (equivalent to $472,000 in 2023);[46] it passed into the collection of Jay C. Leff, a bank executive,[47] until 1981.[1] From there it was sold by Judith Small Nash, a dealer and collector,[48] then owned by Peter G. Gray, a major rancher,[49] until 1 March 1985.[1] It was next owned by Herbert L. Lucas through 2004.[1]
From 2014 until 2016, the labret was held in a private New York collection.[1] It was then purchased by the Met in 2016, using funds from the 2015 Benefit Fund and the Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, and given the accession number 2016.64.[50][51][1]
Exhibitions
The tongue alternating between positions
Even before its acquisition by the Met, the labret has been on display for the majority of the time that it has been known.[1]
^"Heath Warren Steele". Obituaries. The Enterprise. Vol. 96, no. 86. Lexington Park, Maryland. 28 October 1994. p. A-10. Archived from the original on 29 December 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
^"David Truman Steele". Obituaries. The Enterprise. Vol. 90, no. 25. Lexington Park, Maryland. 30 March 1988. p. A-8. Archived from the original on 30 December 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
Pillsbury, Joanne; Potts, Timothy & Richter, Kim N., eds. (2017). Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas. Los Angeles: Getty Publications. ISBN978-1-60606-548-8.
Roskamp, Hans (Spring 2010). "God of Metals: Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipoca and the Sacred Symbolism of Metallurgy in Michoacan, West Mexico". Ancient Mesoamerica. 21 (1). Cambridge University Press: 69–78. JSTOR26309088.
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Close-up of head
Close-up of mouth
The headdress
Decorations on the plug
Front
Back, showing base of plug and one of the three support holes from casting
Underside, showing scales beneath the jaw and the other two support holes from casting
