My name is Andrew Turner, and I've been working as a postdoctoral associate in the Art of the Ancient Americas through a joint appointment in both the Yale University Art Gallery and the Art History Department.

This is the head of a deity that we call Xochipilli, whose name means "the flower prince" in Nahuatl language, which is the language that was spoken by the Aztecs and other groups in Central Mexico prior to the arrival of the Spanish. Still today many people speak the Nahuatl language as well.

This deity, Xochipilli, has a really complex set of symbolism associated with him. This guy's usually associated with the dawning sun, or the newly born sun, in the East. Basically as the sun moves throughout the sky during the day, it ages. It's born as a beautiful youth in the morning, it's a kind of powerful warrior at midday, it grows old and dies at nighttime, and it makes an underworld journey and is then born again in the morning in the East.

Ancient religious practice in Mesoamerica usually engaged multiple senses. One of those senses that's really integral is smell, so usually that means incense in Mesoamerica. They would burn something called copal, which is the sap of a particular type of tree. And it's actually pretty similar to the incense that you'd smell in a Catholic mass. The incense would've been burned inside the body. And, if you notice, his mouth is slightly open; the smoke would've probably poured out of the mouth and that would've been basically how the deity communicates with somebody.