146 



CRANIA AMERICANA. 



believed, with the philosopher Plato, that there was something majestic and royal 

 in a large nose, and hence may have used it, in their paintings and reliefs, as the 

 symbol of power and moral worth."* 



With respect to the form and expression of the Toltecan face, we possess 

 other remains of antiquity that no doubt approach very near to nature, and at least 

 express what those people considered the beau-ideal of the human physiognomy. 

 I allude to the heads moulded in terra-cotta, which have been so abundantly found 

 among the Toltecan ruins of Anahuac. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these 

 effigies have been obtained from the vicinity of the pyramid of Teotihuacan alone : 

 they are mostly about an inch in length, and the features are admirably propor- 

 tioned. They have high and broad foreheads, oval faces, prominent cheek bones, 

 and rather tumid lips. They are all very much compressed from back to front, 

 and appear to have been ornamental appendages of clay vessels in common use. 

 A late traveller has observed, that the arts could not have been very deficient 

 with a people " who, with such coarse materials, and for such common purposes, 

 could fashion heads on so small a scale, and exhibiting so much character and 

 expression."! 



Dr. Frederick Edmonds, an English gentleman who passed several years in 

 the Mexican republic, has presented me with a number of these relics, which 

 were obtained by him from the ruins of the Temples of the Sun and Moon, at 

 Teotihuacan. Two of these, which are similar to those described and figured by 

 Captain Vetch,^ are represented in the subjoined wood-cuts. 



It is thus that we trace the same style of features in the sculpture of the 

 nations of Anahuac, from the northern provinces of that country to Nicaragua^ in 



* Monuments, I, p. 131. 



t Vetch, in Trans. Roy. Geog. Soc. of London, VIII, p. 9. j Ibid, plate II. 



§ From Herrera's account, the people of Nicaragua appear to have continued the custom of 

 moulding the head up to the time of the Spanish invasion of the country. His words are as follow: 



