Pre-Columbian, Late Classic Maya, ca. 550 to 900 CE. An incredible terracotta plate, richly decorated, with a "kill hole" in tondo. The iconography of the bowl is centered on a skull in tondo, with four pairs of glyphs on the red-painted interior walls and narrow black bands demarcating the upper and lower bounds of the walls. The skull recalls the Temple of the Skull at Palenque and other Maya artwork that recalls the cultural image of the trophy head. Trophy heads were a near-universal constant in Mesoamerican imagery for millennia, although by the Classic Maya period it seems more likely that the taking of actual trophy heads had (mostly) been replaced by the ball from the ballgame (in the Popol Vuh, a decapitated head is used instead of a rubber ball). Size: 13.25" W x 2.5" H (33.7 cm x 6.4 cm)
The Maya Classic phase is so named because it was the peak of their artistic and cultural achievements. Part of this, as in many societies, included highly specialized consumable goods. Elaborate plates like this one were designed to be instantly distinguishable from those used for everyday eating or drinking - not just in decoration, but also in quantity produced, making these a much rarer find than a piece of domestic pottery. Instead, a bowl like this one would be ritually "sacrificed" by having a hole put through its center; it would then be placed into a tomb as an offering.
Provenance: ex-Fort Knox Artifacts, ex Gill collection, Florida, before 1995
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#156268
Condition
Expertly repaired and restored from multiple pieces, with small areas of overpaint along the repair lines. This is very well done and difficult to discern. Pigment is slightly abraded but motifs are very clear.