Mexican Aztec Folk Art Teotihuacan Pyramid Stone Warrior Popo & Maiden Izta 13"

Description

This beautiful art piece handmade in the Teotihuacan region in Mexico represents warrior Popo carrying maiden Izta atop a pyramid of the region.  The artists of Teotihuacan are very talented and work with various mediums such a clay, resin, glass, stone and minerals and their art pieces can take their form in sculpture, pottery, burial masks and murals.  Their art can range from highly stylized to minimalist.  The art forms are often of deities, monuments of the Teotihuacan culture, or pieces representative of the Aztec culture which influenced the region.  Black obsidian is the most significant stone/glass used in their art, yet sculptures and masks are also embellished with a variety of quartz,  jade, basalt, greenstone, andesite, and shell that are highly polished, with particular detail found in the eyes.
This piece is a combination of resin base structure with amazing clay and stone embellishments all around.. from his plumed headdress, to the Aztec calendar glyph back, to the feathered serpant and pyramid, both architectural features of which are found in this Teotihuacan region. Mostly quartz stones in various colors with some black obsidian down the left side.  It is truly beautiful.
It measures 12 1/2" tall x 11 x 6". The last two photos are just to correspond to the history below.
The legend of Popo and Izta
You have probably seen the image throughout Mexico of a beplumed Tlaxcala warrior carrying a beautiful maiden in his arms, behind them a tall white mountain.  The two individuals are now immortalized in the Mexico City region on the southeast horizon, where, on a clear day, you can see rising 17,000 feet above sea level the still active volcano Popocatépetl, which means "smoking mountain" in Nahua and which represents the warrior; and in front of it, a dormant volcano Iztaccihuatl, "the white lady", representing his beloved maiden.  The story of these two volcanoes one smoking and one sleeping came to be in pre-Hispanic times, when the Aztec empire ruled Mexico.  A Tlaxcala warrior fell in love with his princess, a maiden of incredible beauty.  His name was  Popocatépetl and hers was Iztaccihuatl.. or Popo and Izta for short.  When Popo asked Izta's father for her hand in marriage, he agreed, but only if Popo returned victorious from battling the Aztecs, with the heads of his enemies to prove it.  So Popo went off to war promising to return.  After months of waiting, a rival of Popo's in love with Izta himself told the princess that her warrior would never return because he had died in battle.  Heartbroken, Izta fell into deep despair.  After Popo finally did return carrying the heads of his enemies he found a corpse instead of a bride as Izta had died of a broken heart.  Grief stricken, Popo carried Izta's body to the mountains where he laid her out and stood watch over her day after day, night after night, until the snow covered them both and the Gods took pity on them, transforming the tragic couple into the eternal peaks of Popo and Izta the "smoking mountain" watching over the sleeping figure of "the white lady", his lover for her smoldering for eternity.
History of Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (where this piece is from)  was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican city located in a sub valley of the Valley of Mexico, located in the State of Mexico.  Although it is a subject of debate whether Teotihuacan was the center of a state empire, its influence throughout Mesoamerica is well documented. It is still a mystery as to who built this amazing city. It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the swooping arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec in central Mexico. But it was the Aztec, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt falling awestruck by what they saw, who gave it a name: Teotihuacan.  The city
reached its zenith between 100 B.C. and A.D. 650 and supported a population of a hundred thousand.
No matter its principal builders, scholars and evidence suggest that Te
otihuacan hosted a patchwork of cultures including the Maya, Mixtec, and Zapotec. One theory says an erupting volcano forced a wave of immigrants into the Teotihuacan
valley and that those refugees either built or bolstered the city.
The city and the archaeological site are located in what is now the San Juan Teotihuacan municipality in the State of Mexico approximately 25 miles northeast of Mexico City. The site covers a total surface area of  32 square miles and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. It is known today as the site of many of the most architecturally significant Mesoamerican pyramids built in the pre-Columbian America, including the Pyramid of the Sun.