Currently not on view
Labret,
A.D. 1400–1520
Aztec Jewelry
Among the Aztec, jewelry made of precious materials marked its wearer’s high social status and conveyed certain ideas about his or her character. The labret, or lip-plug, was inserted through a pierced hole in the lower lip and qualified the wearer's speech and breath as precious. The Aztec term for king, tlahtoani, means "speaker," attesting to the high value of refined, poetic rhetoric in Aztec culture. Many peoples of Mesoamerica also believed in a soul which resided in one’s breath; decorating the openings in the head, including the nostrils, mouth, and ears, signaled the preciousness and vitality of a person’s soul. The materials used in these ornaments came from distant lands through the Aztec’s expansive trade network. Turquoise, for example, originated in modern-day New Mexico, whereas jade was procured from the border of Guatemala and Honduras.
More Context
Didactics
Labrets were objects formed of precious stone and metal that were inserted through a hole pierced in the flesh of the lower lip. The wide flange at the base was intended to secure the ornament between the lip and the bottom teeth while the end projected out from the face. Obsidian was favored among the Aztecs and Eastern Nahuas who controlled most of its volcanic sources. This particular example was enhanced by the application of an embossed gold foil disk set with three pieces of turquoise. Labrets, nose ornaments, and earrings of many kinds could convey sophisticated messages about social status and ethnicity in ancient Mexican society. Rituals dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, patron god of the Eastern Nahuas, for example, required aspiring nobles to journey to Cholula to meet with two high priests called the Tlachiach and the Aquiach. After several days of prayer and penitence, the ears, nose, and lips of the initiate were pierced with sharpened eagle and jaguar bones, and ornaments were inserted according to the custom of the kingdom from which the petitioner came. In this way the noble was declared a tecuhtli or lineage head, and was thereby granted, through Quetzalcoatl’s divine authority, the rulership of a royal estate or teccalli.
Information
A.D. 1400–1520
North America, Mexico, Central Mexico
<p> November 9, 1989, Paul Arany, New York, sold to the Princeton University Art Museum [1]. </p> <p> Notes: <br> [1] According to an Arany invoice in the curatorial file. <br> </p>
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"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1989," <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University </em>49, no. 1 (1990): p. 24-57., p. 29
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Felipe Solís, <em>The Aztec Empire: Catalogue of the Exhibition</em> (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004)., cat. no. 290 (illus.)
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Virginia M. Fields, et al., <em>Children of the Plumed Serpent: the Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in ancient Mexico (</em>London: Scala Publishers Limited, 2012)., p. 205 (illus.). 230, 249
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