Figure Pendant 13th-14th century Mixtec This small, globular pendant depicts a male figure wearing a folded paper headdress studded with three round jewels. On his face is an elaborate mask featuring a toothy grimace with exposed fangs and large, glaring eyes. His twisting, heliacal nose resembles a serpents body, with each end unraveling to form a pair of arched eyebrows. A similar motif decorates a ceramic vessel of Tlaloc, the rain god, interred long ago by the Aztecs in the Great Temple at Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City). Whether in the form of nosepieces, crowns, or elaborate turquoise pectorals, two-headed serpents are abundant in Mesoamerican art and are commonly allied with concepts of water, fertility, and an aquatic afterlife.Like the Mixtec serpent pendant [1978.412.117, this miniature figure is made of greenstone and perforated for suspension. Carved on a diminutive scale, the shape of the figures body is conveyed with only a few brief incisions, thereby reducing i