Selected Works (Click to view larger)
Plate with the Maize God dancing above water
The origin myth depicted on this plate shows the Maize God’s birth directly from the watery Underworld. Here, he dances above water, indicated by the wide band with circles near the bottom. Under the god’s feet is a skull sprouting one or two large water lilies, a personification of the hieroglyph for nahb, meaning “pool” or “water lily.” The two figures flanking the Maize God gesture toward his feet, facilitating his emergence.
Incense burner with a deity with aquatic elements
The central character on this incense burner is a god with both aquatic and solar associations. At Palenque, he is “GI”—a deity who plays a central role in Palenque’s creation myth. A water curl marks his cheek, and a single shark tooth protrudes from his mouth. Spondylus shell ear ornaments indicate his origin in the eastern seas. A shark headdress and protruding crocodile head above suggest that the deity is rising from the depths to the surface of the water.
Lintel with a bloodletting rite (Yaxchilan Lintel 25)
This panel was originally set above the central doorway of a temple dedicated to the chief wife of a king. She is shown here conjuring the vision of an ancestral spirit by performing a bloodletting ritual and burning a vessel full of blood-soaked paper. The ancestor rises from the Underworld through a mythic serpent.
Bloodletting rituals were performed by the Maya to assure the continuity of seasonal cycles and to commune with ancestors and gods. This practice was tied to the sea: it involved using stingray spines to puncture the skin in order to summon spirits residing within the watery Underworld.
Three face ornaments of Quetzalcoatl
These ornaments probably outlined the mouth and eye openings of a wooden mask of Quetzalcoatl, the central Mexican god of wind. Above the two eyepieces are “animate eyebrows” in the form of feathered rattlesnakes, symbols of breath and wind. Their fangs and tongues are extended as if about to strike. Their style reflects the artistic influence of highland Mexico to the west. Perhaps this gold mask’s eventual deposition into a cenote reflects veneration or disfavor for Quetzalcoatl at a particular moment.
Figurine of the Jaguar God of the Underworld riding a crocodile
This figurine portrays the Jaguar God of the Underworld, a nocturnal aspect of the Sun God, seated on the back of a crocodile. He grasps the crocodile by the snout, and his upraised axe suggests imminent decapitation. The scene probably relates to the slaying of a cosmic crocodile in Mesoamerican creation mythology. However, rather than a violent sacrifice, the scene suggests the dominance of the night-sun over the earth-crocodile and control of the rain-bringing clouds emerging from the creature’s snout.
Birth to Rebirth
Overview
The Maya viewed time and nature as cyclical. Water, clouds, sun, and rain all rose in the east and traveled across the sky into the west. The Maize God, whose watery journey from death to resurrection was the central metaphor for Maya life, best embodied this worldview. As the sun rose in the east every morning out of the Caribbean Sea, it bore sharklike features appropriate for the environment from which it emerged. Like the sun, the sea itself came to the Maya daily from the east, in the form of rain-bearing clouds from the Caribbean. The clouds not only made crops flourish, but were also the essence of ancestors who resided in the sea. For the Maya people, death in the west led to a trip through the Underworld, followed by rebirth in the cosmic clouds of the east.
