Botanical Museum Leaflets 

 Fall 1983 



Vol. 29, No. 4 



CARVED DISEMBODIED EYES' 



OF TEOTIHUACAN 



Jonathan Ott' and R. Gordon Wasson- 



Situated a few hours' drive northeast of Mexico City are the 

 magnificent ruins of Teotihuacan, dating from the beginning of 

 the first millennium A.D. Best known for two large, stepped 

 pyramids (Pyramids of the Sun and Moon) and the smaller, 

 more ornate Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, the ruins abound in 

 numerous low, labyrinthine buildings which are decorated with 

 beautiful and complex mural paintings. The comparatively well- 

 preserved Tepantitla murals are best known to scholars, a 

 prominent segment having been restored and repainted in the 

 Teotihuacan room of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in 

 Mexico City by Agustin Villagra Caleti. Portions of many other 

 murals survive at Teotihuacan, while some, such as the 

 important Zacuala murals, which are unprotected from the 

 elements, are scarcely visible today. 



In his 1973 book The Mural Painting of Teotihuacan (1), 

 Arthur G. Miller drew attention to the prominence of the 

 ^disembodied eyes' which occur repeatedly in the mural paint- 

 ings of Teotihuacan. Figures 1-4 illustrate some typical ex- 

 amples of the recurrent 'disembodied eyes', motif. One of us (J. 



Figure 1. Trcdella' from Zacuala, Teotihuacan, repainted by Abel Mendoza. 

 Notice 'disembodied eyes' flanking central motif representing four mushrooms 

 surrounding the radiant iogos\ 



'President, Natural Products Co., P.O. Box 273, Vashon, Wa., 98070. 

 ^Honorary Research Associate, Harvard Botanical Museum, Cambridge, Ma. 



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