360 Philip Ainsworth Means, 



Chimu, Proto-Nasca and Tiahuanaco II arts. Several able 

 studies of the stone have appeared, chief among which are two 

 by Markham and that by Polo.^^ With the aid of our Plate IX 

 we will now examine this stone and its bearing- upon our subject. 

 The characteristic of the stone which first strikes the beholder 

 is the tremendous elaboration of the design. One has to study 

 it carefully before it resolves itself into its component parts. 

 When this is done, it becomes apparent that the design falls into 

 halves, the lower of which shows a personage holding two staves, 

 and the upper of which is made up of a mass of inverted faces 

 with their secondary decorations. We will study the halves in 

 that order. The personage is unquestionably derived in part 

 from the Weeping God motif. The face is square and is edged 

 with serpent-heads faintly analogous to the tab-like ornaments 

 of the Weeping God. The face, on the other hand, is utterly 

 different in both content and treatment from that of the Weeping 

 God. Indeed, it is very difficult to decide just which of the 

 numerous complex features belong to the face of the personage. 

 One may assume, if he chooses, that the two upper dots are his 

 eyes and the involutions just above them are conventionalized 

 eyebrows while the two dots below^ are nostrils. This is, per- 

 haps, the most satisfactory interpretation.' '' The mouth which, 

 from one aspect, looks like an adaptation of the toothed and 

 fanged rectangular mouth seen in coast Tiahuanaco II, again 

 presents difficulties because, on turning the Plate upside down, 

 it turns out that the mouth is formed by two fanged puma-heads 

 set nose to nose and lip to lip. It may be suggested that in the 

 group of details formed by the puma-heads and the twined ser- 

 pent-heads just behind each of them we see a faint survival 

 and tremendous conventionalization of the mouth-mask of Proto- 

 Nasca art. As in the case of the Weeping God on the mono- 

 lithic gateway, the body is short and square. There are no 



^* Markham, 1904 and 1908; Polo, 1899. 



'° Prof. MacCurdy's interpretation of the plate differs from the writer's, 

 for he thinks the two upper dots to be the nostrils of an inverted face 

 like those on the upper half of the stone. There is a good deal to be said 

 in support of this view. But an examination of our Plate IX, or, still 

 better, the large one in Polo, 1899, will show that the writer's interpreta- 

 tion is also valid. We may say, therefore, that the two dots in question 

 serve, in one position, as eyes for the face of the chief head of the design, 

 and, when reversed, act as nostrils for an inverted subsidiary head. 



