46 



stone, or porphyry with basis of greenstone, 

 which antiquaries commonly call Egyptian ba- 

 salt. The folds of the headdress, and especially 

 the pearls, are highly finished ; though the 

 artist, destitute of a steel chisel, and with no 

 tools perhaps but those of copper mixed with 

 tin, such as I have brought from Peru, must 

 have encountered great difficulties in the exe- 

 cution. 



This statue has been very accurately drawn, 

 under the inspection of M. Dupe, by a student 

 of the Academy of Painting at Mexico. It is 

 0»38 of a metre in height, and 0*19 in breadth. 

 I have adopted the denomination of the statue 

 of a priestess, the title which it bears in the 

 country. It may nevertheless represent some 

 Mexican divinity, and have been originally 

 classed among the household gods. The head- 

 dress and pearls found on an idol discovered in 

 the ruins of Tezcuco, and which I deposited in 

 the cabinet of the King of Prussia, at Berlin, 

 give authority to this conjecture. The orna- 

 ment of the neck, and the natural form of the 

 head, render it more probable, that the statue 

 represents simply an Azteck woman. On this 

 last supposition, the fluted pads, which extend 

 toward the breast, cannot be tresses ; since the 

 virgins, who devoted themselves to the service of 

 the temple, were shorn by the high priest, or 

 tepanteohuatzin. 



