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MEXICAN ARCHÆOLOGY

in the underworld, i.e. the sun after its setting. The presence of the sun-attributes is necessitated by the fact that without them the death-face would be indistinguishable from that of the death-god, whereas the head of the other god requires no special identification marks, There are a good many additional points which support this view, but I will mention two only. The magnificent carved lintel from Tikal, now at Basle, shows a figure with all the attributes of the death-god beneath a particularly elaborate example of the double-headed monster. The position of the monster here 1s unusual, since it is usually shown as a support rather than as a canopy, but I think that in this case 1t emphasizes the fact that the home of the death-god 1s below the earth. The other point is the following: in the relief at Palenque, known as the cross, the conventional tree (for such it is in reality), springs from the head with the combined death-and sun-symbols (Fig. §1). In this case the part is taken for the whole, the head represents the earth-monster, and the whole scene is an exact parallel to the Borgia codex, in which the trees of the world-directions are shown rooted in the body of the monstrous earth-goddess (Fig. 10; p. 79). The Vaticanus B codex is an even closer parallel, since the trees representing the quarters are there depicted as springing from a cipactli head, and it will be remembered that the Mexicans believed the earth to have been created from a monstrous cipactli (p. §9). It is true that the "foliated cross" is supported by a head of another type, but there is a particular reason for this; the "foliated cross" is in reality a maize-plant, the head is that of a rain-or water-god (of whom parallels are found at Chichen Itza and other places), and the combination symbolizes the dependence of the maize-crop upon the water-supply. The finest example of the double-headed earth-monster is the remarkable monolith, designated P, at Quirigua (Pl. XXVI, 1; p.