Selected Works (Click to view larger)
Panel with a seated ruler in a watery cave (Cancuen Panel 3)
Maya rulers and nobles were believed to be able to exist in two worlds at once: a royal court and, as on this recently excavated panel, a watery cave. Here, a ruler known as “Torch-sky-turtle” presides over two lesser lords from his water-lily-shaped throne. The lords have water lilies lashed to their foreheads, and the ruler’s lily attracts a passing fish. Encircling the scene is a bubbling, watery band with water lilies at its corners. This artistic construction signals an underground hollow. It is identified as a pan-ha’ or “cavity of water” in the hieroglyphic text to the left, which also contains the name of the sculptor.
Lidded vessel of a world-turtle
This lidded bowl serves as a model of the Maya conception of the world and denotes its watery origins. The earth is represented as a turtle surrounded by delicate volutes and dotted lines of orange and black that evoke lapping waves. A water-bird sprouting from its back indicates the emergence of life from this medium. The bird, whose head forms the lid’s handle, draws a shellfish up from beneath the waters.
Crocodile effigy
A symbol of the primordial world, this crocodile is scored to evoke the terrestrial surface cultivated by the ancient Maya. Serving as both a whistle and a rattle, the creature is painted with a stable pigment of indigo and clay known as Maya Blue. It is thought to have sacred associations.
Statuette of Chahk
This early Maya work illustrates the ancient origins of the concept of sentient or living water. This statuette of Chahk, god of rain and storms, exhibits watery traits, including whirls in his brows, drops marking his broad beard, and a ridge on his head that likely is a fish fin. On the figure’s back is one of the oldest examples of Maya writing. Its meaning is unclear, but it may refer to the object’s owner.
Lidded bowl with the Iguana-Jaguar eviscerating humans (detail)
One of the finest surviving Maya ceramics, this vessel offers a variant on the origin myth concerning the slaying of a sea creature. Here, a great “iguana-jaguar” is the victor: the three human figures have been chewed in half, representing the first sacrifice to create the world. The creature, splayed across much of the lid’s surface, floats in water, denoted by the repeating pattern of dots around the rim. Its open maw holds the head of a death deity, while an elaborate band of blood flows before it.
Water and Cosmos
Overview
The Maya viewed water as animate and intelligent, a living and thinking force with the power to influence events. Water was central to the structure of the universe and present at the beginning of time—oceans, rivers, springs, and rain were united, both literally and spiritually. This section features works of art that portray water in its various forms, including figures of Chahk, the god of rain and storms, a central deity in the Maya pantheon. Painted ceramics and architectural fragments show water as the source of both life and fertility, and the sea as a fearsome place of the unknown. The Maya cosmos is represented by primordial beasts, such as the world crocodile and the world turtle, which symbolize Maya conceptions of the sea and the origins of their world.
