LIFE FORM IiN AET. 



315 



The Radicals or the Profile Seepent-head. 



Fig. 81. 



^ ^ g . S J? ^ 



A. (*) B. (+) C. {%) D. (§) E. (II) F. (H) G.(**) I. (ft) 

 Radicals of the Serpent-jaw from xlztec and Incarian sources. 



Among these nine ilustrations which we have selected from the large 

 number apparently of the same significance, we detect considerable dissimilarity. 

 Yet they possess the common feature of pi'esenting two more or less curved lines 

 joined at an angle. Each of the outlines could be written without the pen leaving 

 the paper. The angle is the result of a union between a vertically inclined member to 

 one nearly horizontal. We will endeavor to show (in absence of a chronology, or 

 the nomenclature of the artists themselves) that these signs represent the two main 

 lines of the open jaw of the serpent-head seen in profile, and that they ai-e as near 

 letter-types, as it is impossible to be with figures derived from a protean model. J J 



Fig. 82. (§§) Fig. 88. (Ill) Fig. 84. (nil) Fig. 85. (*«) Fig. 86. (W) 



* Stephens, .J. S., Yucatan, etc., 1843. 



+ Nicaragua, its People, Scenery, Monuments, etc., E. Gr. Squier, New York, 1852, II, C6. 

 tibid., 1852, ir, 66. 

 §Ibid., II, 66. 



||-tt From the Musca Alphabet, Humboldt, Vue de Cordilleras. 



XX Figure A of the above series although distinctive it is thought of the Aztec ophidian profile, is a natural curve 

 and is seen elsewhere, in the art of various people, when it is desired to represent the open mouth of an animal. We 

 find the same horizontal line representing the lower jaw joined to a curved upper jaw (the convexity of the curve 

 standing for the fold of the upper lip overlying the tooth-line of the upper jaw) in Europe and Asia. See Archaeologif> 

 XLII, pi. 17, 312, for the head of a panther or lion of the Saxon period. 



§1 Incidents of Travel in Central America and Yucatan. Stevens, I, 1843, 309. 

 Ill Kingsborough Coll. (Dresden codex, 3d column.) 



Kingsborough Coll. (Dupaix.) 

 ***From photograph of Palencque cross ; see also Stephens, I. c, II, 1842, 345, 

 f+t Kingsborough Coll. (Borgian Codex.) 



