116 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL 2IUSEVM. vol.42. 



These great pottery braziers are monuments to the modeler's skill 

 in producing a forceful work from crude material, and the final 

 painting raises these objects immediately to a high plane of esthetic 

 quality. 



Dr. Eduard Seler/ in liis account of the finds in the Calle de las 

 Escalerillas, City of Mexico, some years ago, remarks: 



About 20 meters to the east of the first skull altar, or, as we now know, the first 

 Tezcatlipoca stone seat, were found two pottery vases three-quarters of a meter in 

 height, presumably fire vases. They have on the lower border a decoration of kjiobs, 

 and in the middle a band which in front is bound into a large loop. A rather large 

 hole is formed in the walls of the vase from side to side at the level of the band, possi- 

 bly for the passage of a pole by means of which the heavy vessel was transported. 

 (PI. 7 a, 6.) 



It will be interesting to determine conclusively whether these bra- 

 ziers were transported by means of a pole, as suggested by the curious 

 orifice passing through the body of the vase. 

 If this opening is not connected with the venti- 

 lation of the fire, the brazier probably was used 

 in some rite which required its transportation 

 from one place to another not far distant. 

 The two Ixtapalapa braziers show this feature, 

 but apparently the holes are too far off the 

 center to admit of balance on a pole. (PI. 5 a, h.) 

 The Tlaltelolco specimen (pi. 5 c) appears to 

 have no such construction. The brazier fig- 

 FiG. 3.-BRAZIER OF POT- urcd by Dr. Seler - from Copan, Honduras, is 

 TERY.coPAN, HONDURAS. perforated in a similar manner. (Fig. 3.) 

 In describing a great censer urn from the cave of Quen Santo- 

 Chacula, district of Nenton, Department of Huehuetenango, Guate- 

 mala, Dr. Seler records that "in the depths of one of these caverns 

 we found a kind of altar and walls which formed a chapel. We also 

 found the idols in place and large urns, the openwork walls of which 

 represent the features of a demon having large eyes, colmieres springing 

 from the mouth, and the nose and chin bristling with spines. One 

 can imagine the effect this visage of the devU would produce when it 

 was illuminated by the fire on the interior of the urn."^ (Fig. 4.) 



Enough examples of the hourglass-shape censer-braziers have been 

 recovered to enable one to trace in their form and embellishment 

 certain motives which remain in the conventionalized specimens 

 found at the three-story temple at the base of the Pyramid of the 

 Sun at Teotihuacan, those of the Calle de las Escalerillas in the City of 



1 Seler, Ges. Abh. zur Amer. Sprach u. Alterthumskunde, vol. 2, Berlin, 1904, p. 8S3. 

 s Idem, vol. 3, p. 679. 

 • Idem, vol. 2, p. 225. 



