Sale of Serpent Labret

Date: November 22, 1978 • Location: West End of London, United Kingdom

The serpent labret with articulated tongue is a gold-alloy body ornament from the Aztec culture of the mid-second millennium AD. Designed to be inserted into a piercing below the lower lip, it depicts a fanged serpent poised to strike, with a bifurcated tongue hanging from its mouth. The tongue, which is moveable and retractable, would have swung from side to side with its wearer's movements. Art historians have described it as an ingenious example of Aztec metalworking, and among the finest Aztec gold objects known to survive.