Cleveland Museum of Art

Ear Ornament

Date

150–200 CE

Medium

jadeite-albitite(?)

Culture

Central Mexico, Teotihuacán style, Classic period

Department

Art of the Americas

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Near Teotihuacán's largest palace is a small temple gorgeously ornamented with green-feathered serpents, symbols of the earth's fertility. Beneath the temple lie at least 120 human sacrifices, most men, many warriors, and some wearing greenstone ornaments like these, perhaps a set. The sacrifices, apparently laid out to mark the cardinal directions, may have consecrated the temple or a ruler's tomb, or both.

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