Description This art is based on an Aztec sculpture now located in the British Museum. The original art piece, dating from the late 15th or early 16th-century, is 17' long and is thought to have been worn as a breast piece by Aztec priests. One theory about the relocation of this artwork to Europe is that it was either given to or taken by Hernando Cortez. The double-headed snake imagery is prominent in ancient Mesoamerican cultures. As accomplished sky-watchers, the Maya and Aztec priests represented the Sun's pathway moving through the ecliptic as a two-headed serpent. In this symbolic depiction, the sky snake extended its gaze to the beginning and ending of the seasonal voyage of the Sun. Sky (Chan) and Snake (Chan) are near homophones, i.e. pronounced almost the same way, even though their respective glyphs are different.