Maya, Terracotta Vessel dish wiht a glyphs. 24 cm D. 600 - 900 AD. Spanish Import License

Dish adorned with an inner frieze of geometric decoration, decorated in the center with a glyphs with two birds.

Maya , Guatemala, 600 - 900 AD

Terracotta and pigments

24 cm Diameter, 5,7 cm Height.

Provenance: Private collection, Paris, 1960 - 1980. Public auction, Thence by descent.

Condition: Good, rejoined from 3 big parts, original pigments, see photos.

Documents: Spanish Import license.


The Maya civilization extended over a large area, from present-day south-central Mexico to Guatemala and Honduras. The area has three distinct geographic regions—the mountains and highlands, the tropical jungle lowlands, and the lowlands of the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula—each with its own landscape and natural resources. During the Classical Period, the Mayans lived in the highlands and lowlands, in which Tikal and Kaminaljuyú were their major population centers, respectively.

The Mayans developed a unique artistic style with a degree of complexity that rivals that of European baroque. Their extremely life-like, anatomically proportionate human images are found in natural poses that emphasize movement. Their art represented sacred, ritual and hierarchical themes, although they also reproduced scenes from daily life and images of local fauna such as monkeys, tapirs, jaguars, bats, quetzal birds, fish and turtles. Stone was one of their favorite media, and they used it for their buildings, stelas, and the low- and high-relief sculptures that adorned their buildings. The Mayan’s architectural contributions include the stela-altar, the arch and the false vault. In addition to monumental art they also had a highly developed personal esthetic, manufacturing ear ornaments, pendants, necklaces, masks and other adornments out of jade. They deformed their craniums and noses and hung ornaments on their foreheads to make them squint-eyed.

They decorated their pottery with painted and engraved images, producing some of the finest works of pre-Columbian art. Popular Mayan ceramic pieces included serving bowls, pipes and vases, the last of these often adorned with Mayan glyphs.

Religion was a central aspect of Mayan culture. They believed in an earthly world and a supernatural one, an underworld and an overworld, viewing these as a single entity in which humans, deities, plants and animals were tied together by destiny. In living out these beliefs they made pilgrimages to the great Mayan civic and religious centers to obtain horoscopes and make offerings of blood from their fingertips, earlobes and tongues on altars erected in front of the carved estelas. The Mayans had an extensive pantheon of gods, the most notable of whom were the creator Hunab–Ku, and Ah Puc, the God of Night, who inhabited the underworld. They also worshipped the sun and moon, Venus, and other heavenly bodies, as well as natural phenomena such as rain, incarnated as the god Chaac. Other Mayan gods were patrons of specific social classes and trades. These include Kukulcán, the feathered serpent, who was associated with the ruling class, and Ek Chua, the patron of merchants and cacao producers. The Mayans believed that at death, depending on individual merit, they would go to eternal rest in one of the heavens under the leafy shade of the ceiba tree, or remain eternally tormented by hunger and cold in the dark underworld. Peasants were buried close to the huts in which they had died, whereas nobles were cremated and their ashes deposited in urns in underground vaults. Mayan rulers were laid to rest in temples built especially to house their tombs.
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