The Guatemalan Ceramics Exhibit

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Zoomorphic vessel
Central highlands
Late Preclassic (300 B.C.- 200 A.D.)

Represents the head of a large snake known as a cantil.

Height 15 cm; Width 32 cm.

Usulutan-style vessel
Kaminaljuyu
Late Preclassic (300 B.C.- 200 A. D.)

Bird effigy, probably a spoonbill.

Height 13.5 cm; Diameter 10 cm.

Olmec-style vessel
Possibly from Guatemala's southeast coast
Middle Preclassic (800-300 B.C.)

Height 8.5 cm; Diameter 13 cm.

Olmec-style vessel
Possibly from Guatemala's southeast coast
Middle Preclassic (800-300 BC)

Height 14.5 cm; Diameter on the top 10 cm.

Fragmentary human head effigy bowl with only the front half surviving. The main body of the vessel renders a face with nearly closed eyes, open mouth, and a diagonal slash in each cheek. The ears, with small, disk-like ear ornaments, also are present. A second face surmounts the vessel, although nothing survives of this second face above the nose. The back half of the vessel has broken away.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Mexico, Guatemala, or Belize
47 cm (18 1/2 in.)
Earthenware with black, red, yellow and white slip paint
 

Classification: Ceramics
Type, sub-type: Incense burner

Object is currently not on view

A diving figure is perched atop the lid, his arms folded in front of his face and his legs bent at the knees and arching over his head. A supernatural being emerges from behind his legs. His body is elaborated painted to represent clothing and perhaps body paint or tatoos. Four elliptical and red-painted cartouches on the lid's columnar lower section are each painted with an undeciphered hieroglyph.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, Southern Highlands, Tiquisate region
43.5 x 43.3 x 28 cm (17 1/8 x 17 1/16 x 11 in.)
Earthenware: traces of red and yellow post-fire paint
 

Teotihuacán-style effigy incense burner with figure rendered inside a temple surmounted by a geometric roof comb. Butterflies, stars, floral motifs, and feathered disks (mirrors?) decorate the building. This type of incense burner is typical of the Tiquisate region in southern Guatemala, made in imitation of the characteristic incense burners of Teotihuacán in highland Mexico.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Mexico or Guatemala, Petén lowlands
9.8 x 20.2 cm (3 7/8 x 7 15/16 in.)
Earthenware: black slip paint
 

The lid is decorated with two incised abstract renderings of a profile saurian head. Its cylindrical knob is unusually tall (4.6 cm) and wide (4.6 cm). See 1972.1171b for the vessel's tetrapod base. Also see 1972.1172a and b for a very similar vessel.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, Southern highlands(?)
Overall: 64 x 28 cm (25 3/16 x 11 in.)
Earthenware: white post-fire paint
 

Seated male figure with large, rounded eyes, barbles at the upper edges of his mouth, and a goatee-like beard. Bared teeth are visible in his open mouth. He wears a brimmed hat-like headdress with cross symbols, the urn's opening in the top of the headdress. Bands decorate his wrists and legs below the knees.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Represents a warrior with a butterfly headdress

Height 29 cm; Width 21 cm.

This impressed scene represents a figure with raised arms within a space delimitated by stars along the side.

Height 16.5 cm; Diameter 15 cm.

The symbols stamped onto this vase have been interpreted as text from the Teotihuacan writing system.

Height 20.6 cm; Diameter 20.8 cm.

Represents the effigy of a bat.

Height 15.5 cm; Diameter 25.5 cm.

Tetrapod vase with deer figure
Lowlands or highlands
Early Classic (250-600 A.C.)

Painted figure of a stylized deer.

Height 22 cm; Diameter 13.5 cm.

Tripod vase with painted stucco
Lowlands or highlands
Early Classic (250-600 A.C.)

Has applications of painted stucco, and hieroglyphic text on the lid.

Height 19 cm; Diameter 12 cm.

Guatemala, Tiquisate area or Southern Highlands (?)
19 x 30.2 cm (7 1/2 x 11 7/8 in.)
Earthenware: orange slip paint; specular hematite slip paint on orange slip on modeled area
 

Cache vessel bottom is modeled on its front surface with the head of supernatural whose primary identifying characteristic is two knots over his mouth area. A tall, trapezoidal headdress-like element is incised with fine lines. A vertical line of curvilinear elements on each side of the face may symbolize fire, smoke or clouds. The remains of charcoal on the inside of the vessel suggest that offerings were burned prior to caching the vessel inside a building, burial or cave.

Cache vessel lid is modeled on its front with the face of supernatural. The spiral eyes and barbles at the sides of the mouth recall the Hero Twin Hun Ajaw. A vertical line of curvilinear elements on each side of the face may symbolize fire, smoke or clouds. Extensive remains of carbonized material and charcoal on the inside of the vessel suggest that offerings were burned prior to caching the vessel inside a building, burial or cave.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

El Petén, Guatemala
16.8 x 21.6 cm (6 5/8 x 8 1/2 in.)
Earthenware: red slip paint and traces of post-fire white pigment or stucco
 

The front of this cache vessel lid is decorated with the face of a supernatural with scroll eyes and a sting ray spine as a front tooth, both of which are attributes of the deity GI. He wears a zoomorphic headdress, and two large flanges at the side of his face are modeled with his earflare assemblage and other adornments. His face is encircled by small spherical elements that may represent jadeite beads. The back side of the vessel, its rim, and the upper half of the inner surface are painted with red slip. White encrustations adhere to one half of the inside surface of the lid.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, southern highlands, Tiquisate region
12.8 x 23.2 cm (5 1/16 x 9 1/8 in.)
Earthenware: unslipped
 

Hourglass-shaped base for Tiquisate region Teotihuacán-style incense burner. The surface of the hourglass-shaped top is well-smoothed with no surface embellishment or sculptural decoration. This contrasts with lower section, which is extensively decorated with mold-made attachments representing feathered mirrors, Spondylus shells and flowers.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, Southern Highlands
30 x 39 cm (11 13/16 x 15 3/8 x 16 in.)
Earthenware: white and black post-fire paint
 

This hollow cylinder is one part of a perhaps three-part cylindrical stand on top of which was placed a plate holding burning coals and incense. The frontr is decorated with an appliqued human face whose large eyes and tau-shaped front tooth recall the sun god K'inich Ajaw. See 1988.1237a for another section of this incense burner.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The ancient American peoples almost universally believed in the existence of an "animal spirit companion" for every human being, a concept portrayed with unusual literalness in this early Maya ceramic piece. On one side is an old man and on the other a jaguar, their unity and identical postures representing the two aspects of a single being. The shaman (high priest) typically had the "king of the jungle" as his alter-ego and was believed to transform into this mighty beast during nighttime rituals. This belief illustrates two fundamental aspects of the ancient American world view: the essential flux and interchangeability of states of being, as well as the interdependence and equality of the human and animal realms.

The ancient American universe was dynamic, inexorably alive, and interpenetrating. The shaman was powerful and knowledgeable enough to traverse simultaneous realities, interceding with natural forces, animal spirits, and negative energies to cure illness and discover the causes of ecological, social, and political strife. Thus, this image captures the dual, transformative nature of a truly exceptional person, and is itself thereby exceptional as well. Perhaps this explains the rarity of depictions of the shaman and his animal spirit companion together, a subject so fraught with power as perhaps to be considered dangerous.

Guatemala, Southern highlands(?)
25.4 x 15.6 x 13.7 cm (10 x 6 1/8 x 5 3/8 in.)
Earthenware: post-fire white and black paint
 

Cylindrically-shaped container representing a seated, anthropomorphic supernatural being. Unindentified protuberances are attached to the nose bridge and inner corner of the eyes (the one on the proper right eye is missing). The figure has a beard-like appendage on the chin with deeply scored vertical lines, which also are found inside the indented area (the mouth?) above the beard. The vesel's walls are very thick.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Departamento de Tiquisate, Guatemala, Pacific Coast piedmont
15.3 x 25.5 cm (6 x 10 1/16 in.)
Earthenware: red slip paint and white post-fire paint
 

Hourglass-shaped base for Tiquisate/Teotihuacán-style effigy incense burner. Base is embellished with a typical Teotihuacán-style butterfly nose ornament, painted red, and round ear flares. The earflare on the left side (proper right side) is a modern restoration.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Departamento de Tiquisate, Guatemala, Pacific Coast piedmont
48.26 x 43.18 x 41.91 cm (19 x 17 x 16 1/2 in.)
Earthenware: yellow, red, and white paint
 

Tall pedestaled incense burner in the form of a leaf-nosed bat with open maw. Daubs of yellow paint decorate the bat's wide eye orbits and snout. Inside the maw is a modeled human head with white-painted face, two small beads suspended below the nose, and five pairs of small disks embellishing the hair.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

North Carolina Museum Of Art

Northeastern Petén
34.8 x 40.8 cm (13 11/16 x 16 1/16 in.)
Earthenware: red and black on yellow-orange slip paint
 

Large basin painted with a depiction of a sacrificial rite involving warriors and battle captives. The four sets of figures include two sets of two warriors facing each other, all holding a shield and spear. A bound and bleeding captive sits on the ground between the two groups of warriors. A third set of figures includes a nude male figure whose body is painted with horizontal stripes and who has undergone penis perforation sacrifice. He faces a warrior holding a shield and spear. Set on the ground between these two figures is a large dish holding a decapitated human head. The fourth set of figures comprises two musicians, one playing a long flute and a maraca, the other playing a long flute and small drum held under his arm (see 1988.1233 for an example of this type of drum). They are flanked by a bound and bleeding captive and a bound human leg. A band of "kan" crosses encircles the basin below the red rim band.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Southern highlands (?), Guatemala
33.02 x 19.05 x 15.24 cm (13 x 7 1/2 x 6 in.)
Earthenware: unslipped
 

Upper half of a large sculpture of a skeletal human or simian figure with open mouth and holding a flat tray-like object beneath its chin. The piece may be part of the upper portion of an incense burner.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, Southern highlands
13 x 13.5 cm (5 1/8 x 5 5/16 in.)
Earthenware: red-orange slip paint
 

Classification: Ceramics
Type, sub-type: Pottery vessel

Object is currently not on view

Tall-necked jar with a modeled human face on the body of the vessel. The facial features are outlined by parallel, incised lines that may transform the face into that of an elderly person. The small, protruding chin may depict a goatee. A single hole is pierced through each earlobe.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Cleveland Museum

Cleveland Museum

Kislak Collection

North Carolina Museum Of Art

Kislak Collection

El Petén, Guatemala, central Petén lowlands
10.5 x 14.8 cm (4 1/8 x 5 13/16 in.)
Earthenware: red, orange and black on cream slip paint
 

The scene depicts a vision quest rite with six human participants who hold small drinking cups. One of the figures is dancing and smokes a cigarette. The taking of a ritual enema is implied by an enema bag floating between the two main figures and one held by the seated figure who faces the dancer. A large jar containing a frothy liquid sits atop a turtle carapace out of whose ends emerges an opposum-like animal. Flanking the water jar is a cormorant and an armadillo.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Departamento de El Petén, Guatemala, Holmul region
10.79 x 9.52 cm (4 1/4 x 3 3/4 in.)
Earthenware: red and orange on cream, Maya Blue post-fire paint
 

Holmul-style footed bowl with Primary Standard Sequence rim text naming an elite person from the eastern Peten region of Guatemala. A row of long-necked water birds embellish the side of the dish. The remains of post-fire "Maya Blue" pigment are found on the rim and exterior basal foot of the vessel.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: northern Petén lowlands, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin, Pacaya area
12.8 x 11.1 cm (5 1/16 x 4 3/8 in.)
Earthenware: brown-black and red on cream slip paint
 

Codex-style vase with scene depicting a snorting peccary and a turkey. A short hieroglyphic text indicates these animals are supernatural co-essences (wayob).

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: northern Petén lowlands, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin, Pacaya area
11.4 x 12.5 cm (4 1/2 x 4 15/16 in.)
Earthenware: brown-black and red on cream slip paint

Codex-style vase depicting the Hero Twin Hun Ajaw attacking Itsam-Yeh, the Principle Bird Deity, with his blowgun. The other twin Yax Balam hides behind the tree in which sits Itsam-Yeh. Two short hieroglyphic phrases describe the action and name the actors.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: northern Petén lowlands, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin, Nakbé area
13.2 x 12.8 cm (5 3/16 x 5 1/16 in.)
Earthenware: brown-black and red on cream slip paint

Inscriptions: Primary Standard Sequence (attentuated); Calendar Round and verbal statement.

Codex-style vase painted with a two-part scene comprising women riding deer and women attending a dying elderly male lying inside a building. The hieroglyphic texts include an attenuated version of the Primary Standard Sequence (including the vessel shape and contents sections) and a phrase recording the date and nature of the depicted event. The date is non-viable in the Classic Maya calendrical system, which is interpreted as indicating that the event took place in mythological time. If so, then we can conclude that the depicted figures are supernaturals or mythological beings.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: northern Petén lowlands, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin
12.7 x 11.2 cm (5 x 4 7/16 in.)
Earthenware: brown-black and red on cream slip paint

Inscriptions: Calendar Round date 1 Ix 1 P'op (an impossible combination), and short phrase recording a verb and protagonist.

Codex-style vase depicting four simian supernatural beings including the two patron deities of Classic period artists, Hun Batz and Hun Choven. A human male sits next to an enthroned supernatural, turning his gaze away from the four seated simians and seemingly peering outside the building in which they all are seated. A short hieroglyphic text records the Calendar Round date and nature of the depicted event, which may be the offering of balls of copal to the enthroned being. The Calendar Round date cannot occur in the Classic period calendrical system, which indicates that the event is taking place in mythological time.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: El Petén, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin, Nakbé area
11 x 12 cm (4 5/16 x 4 3/4 in.)
Earthenware: black and red on cream slip paint
 

Codex-style vase depicting three supernatural shamanic co-essences (wayob), including a waterlily-toad, a dog-jaguar wearing a fringed scarf, and a monkey with a deer's ear and antlers. Short hieroglyphic texts in the scene name each of the co-essences, and an attenuated (6 glyphs-long) version of the Primary Standard Sequence is found below the vase's rim. Modern in-painting is present in some of the outlines of the pictorial image and a few of the hieroglyphs, the in-painting generally following the original lines. The vase has three small tau-shaped supports.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, Petén lowlands
29.8 x 15.1 cm (11 3/4 x 5 15/16 in.)
Earthenware: red, orange, and black on light orange slip paint
 

Vessel is painted with a scene depicting an elderly supernatural being carried on a waterlily effigy litter supported by four small humanoid supernaturals. A standing human figure offers to the elderly personage a dish whose contents are too eroded to identify. Behind the elderly supernatural are four seated musicians playing maracas, a hand drum, and a turtle shell. Below them are five supernatural beings, four of whom are skelelal humanoids and one a fleshed gopher-like creature. All five have pinwheel-like motifs instead of legs. A Primary Standard Sequence hieroglyphic text encircles the upper rim, its introductory two glyphs being very unusual, eroded, and repainted in modern times. Most of the vessel's imagery has been repainted in modern times, especially the black outlines on the upper half of the vase.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: Motul de San José area, El Petén, Guatemala
22.5 x 12 cm (8 7/8 x 4 3/4 in.)
Earthenware: red, orange, ochre, brown, gray (originally green), and black on cream slip paint
 

Ritual drinking vase painted with a scene featuring the birth of the Maize god at Na-Ho-Chan Witz-Xaman, a supernatural mountain location in the north named in the hieroglyphic text as well as depicted underneath the Maize god. Two supernaturals flank him, and a white cord, which makes reference to an umbilical cord, unites the three figures. This vase was painted by one of the most accomplished artists of the Classic period.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: Guatemala, Southern Highlands, Nebaj area
16.3 x 14.8 cm (6 7/16 x 5 13/16 in.)
Earthenware: red, orange, pink, and black on cream slip

Inscriptions: Primary Standard Sequence (two), short nominal texts in the scene.

The scene depicts the presentation of a war captive and cloth tribute to a lord seated on a bench throne inside a palace-like building. The captive kneels in front of the enthroned lord, and is bound around his waist by a rope held by the figure standing behind him. A Primary Standard Sequence hieroglyphic text encircles the vase's rim, a shortened version of which is repeated on the building's pier. Hieroglyphic phrases within the scene name the lord, the captive, and one of the attendant warriors (the one who made the capture).

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ik' polity, El Petén, Guatemala
14.8 x 13.3 cm (5 13/16 x 5 1/4 in.)
Earthenware: brown-black on cream slip, traces of orange slip
 

The Hero Twin Yax Balam holds a large plate containing the jadeite jewelry of the Maize god. His twin brother Hun Ajaw carries a large bundle that he supports by a cord around his neck. A woman, identified in the adjacent hieroglyphic phrase as a lady of the Ik' polity, presents shell jewels to an eroded dancing figure who is likely the Maize god. The Primary Standard Sequence hieroglyphic text painted around the vase's upper rim ends with the name phrase "Yajaw Te' K'inich, the divine lord of the Ik' polity." Short hieroglyphic phrases in the scene record the date (13 Eb? 9 Tzek) and the event, and name the depicted figures.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

El Petén, Guatemala
17.2 x 11.8 cm (6 3/4 x 4 5/8 in.)
Earthenware: orange, red, dark pink, brown, gray (originally green), and black on cream slip paint; traces of "Maya Blue" pigment

Inscriptions: Primary Standard Sequence, nominal phrases, scene descriptive phrase.

The painted scene depicts a man preparing for a ritual performance. He looks into a mirror held by a standing attendant while a kneeling attendant applies red paint to his buttocks. Two women hold performance objects, including what may be a small rattle and a mask depicting an aged male face. Hieroglyphic texts include the Primary Standard Sequence painted around the vase's rim and short phrases painted within the scene that record the activity and name the participants.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: El Petén, Guatemala, Lake Petén Itzá region, Motul de San José area
22.7 x 13.7 cm (8 15/16 x 5 3/8 in.)
Earthenware: red, pink, white, gray (but originally green), and black on cream slip paint

Ritual drinking vase depicting the birth of the so-called "baby jaguar supernatural," here flanked by seated male and female figures who likely are his parents. Short hieroglyphic texts in front of them record their names or titles (?-ba / k'uhul tzu-na-?). A vertical hieroglyphic text divides the scene and records the date of the birth (on 1 Ix 2 Muwan), names the deity born on this date (the jaguar deity 7-K'awil), and names the sacred mountain locale where the event took place. One of three vases painted by the same master artist (also see 1988.1168, L-R 394.1985).

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: El Petén, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin, Nakbé
16 x 13.5 cm (6 5/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
Earthenware: black and red on cream slip paint
 

Codex-style vase covered with a hieroglyphic text recounting a mythological dynasty of rulers of the snake-head polity. The vessel has three tiny nubbin supports. Much of the imagery has been overpainted or newly painted in modern times, the latter being a copy of one of the other "dynasty vases" that recount this same mythological sequence of rulers. The text ends with the last part of the Primary Standard Sequence, naming the vessel and its patron/owner.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: El Petén, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin
9.6 x 11 cm (3 3/4 x 4 5/16 in.)
Earthenware: black and red on cream-orange slip paint
 

Codex-style vase with scene of two warriors holding shields and spears, and wearing raptorial bird headdresses. They face two male figures, one of whom has a sparse beard and mustache. All four men are depicted from chest upwards, emerging from water. The vessel has three tau-shaped supports.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

southern Guatemala, Alta Verapaz or upper Motagua River Valley
20 x 18 cm (7 7/8 x 7 1/16 in.)
Earthenware: modeled and incised with orange slip paint; traces of stucco and post-fire paint
 

Large cylinder vase modeled on one side with a three-dimensional rendering of a bat. The other side is decorated with a gouged-incised scene of two dancing male figures separated by a profile rendering of the Mo'-Witz, a mythological sacred mountain place. Portions of the vessel were embellished with stucco and post-fire dark red pigment, small amounts of which survive on the vase's rim and the face of the modeled bat especially around the eyes.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Usumacinta River area, Guatemala
Overall: 19.1 x 15.9 cm (7 1/2 x 6 1/4 in.)
Earthenware with red, orange, black and white on cream slip decoration
 

On this vase ten men are drinking and smoking potent tobacco as part of a ritual event. The alcoholic drink-probably made from fermented honey and flavored with special leaves-is contained in jars marked with the hieroglyph ki or chi, which in Lowland Mayan languages refers to sweet substances. The hieroglyphic text around the rim of the vase states that it was the kakaw (chocolate) drinking vessel of a Maya noble. The smaller texts identify the participants and include the title "drunken one" for the man supported by two attendants.
 

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: El Petén, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin
14.2 x 11.4 cm (5 9/16 x 4 1/2 in.)
Earthenware: red and black on cream slip paint
 

Codex-style vase with pedestal base and handle. Narrative scene depicts God N seated in the maw of a serpent. The serpent's tail becomes the vase's handle. God N has removed his net headdress and offers it to a dancing human male figure. A hieroglyph marks a large basin set between the two figures, and two glyphs above the basin record the day 7 Etznab, followed by what may be a verbal glyph. Some portions of the imagery have been repainted in modern times, although most follows the original imagery.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala or Belize, Lowlands
19.7 x 12.4 cm (7 3/4 x 4 7/8 in.)
Earthenware: gouged-incised with orange slip paint
 

Gouged and incised imagery depicting a riitual hunt. Three hunters carry long blow pipe weapons, and each plays an instrument (a small flute, a conch shell trumpet, and what may be a rasp). The conch shell player also carries on his back a bundled deer. A fourth, seated figure, whose hunting role in unclear, wears a long over-skirt. Between the figures are rendered the animals being hunted, including an armadillo, a jaguar, a deer, a rabbit, and five birds.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, Southern highlands
6.8 x 10.2 cm (2 11/16 x 4 in.)
Earthenware: white post-fire paint
 

Small cylindrical vessel with three nubbin supports. Upper rim is crenelated and lower rim has a small flange; both are painted white. The vessel is the bottom half of a small jaguar effigy cache vessel; see 1987.720a for the effigy lid.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, Southern Highlands
67.5 x 63.5 cm (26 9/16 x 25 in.)
Earthenware: white, black, yellow, and red paint
 

The base of a burial or cache urn is decorated with a modeled and painted renderings of a jaguar head surrounded by a yellow-painted background with black spots imitating jaguar skin. Two wide strap handles are found on each side of the urn in the center of a wide strip of three vertical rows of large spikes painted white, which recall the spiked trunk of the ceiba tree.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala, Southern Highlands
61.2 x 53.2 cm (24 1/8 x 20 15/16 in.)
Earthenware: yellow, black, white and red post-fire paint
 

The body of the urn is decorated with the image of a jaguar, with modeled head and forepaws and painted body. Two horizontal rows of four loop handles are arranged equally around the urn's circumference. Four are attached to the urn's wide rim band, and four wider loop handles are attached at the urn's midpoint, rotated 45 degrees from the locations of the handles of the rim band.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: El Petén, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin
10.4 x 9.3 cm (4 1/8 x 3 11/16 in.)
Earthenware: black and red on cream slip paint
 

Codex-style pitcher with closed top except for an opening at the spout and a 2-cm wide hole in the center of the top. The hieroglyphic text painted on the body of the pitcher is a modern addition.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Eastern Petén Region, Guatemala
Overall: 14 x 33 cm (5 1/2 x 13 in.)
Earthenware: red, orange, and black on cream slip
 

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Representation of the jaguar god, associated with war, fire, night and death.

Height 41 cm; Diameter 43.5 cm.

The base presents the face of the jaguar god emerging from the jaws of a reptilian monster. A jaguar cub is depicted on the lid.

Height 110 cm; Diameter 54 cm.

The figure on the lid may represent the jaguar god.

Height 15 cm; Diameter 10.5 cm.

Represents a porter using a mecapal to carry a large cylindrical vessel.

Height 13.5 cm; Diameter 5.5 cm.

Fragment from a funerary
urn lid
Northwestern Highlands
Late Classic (600 - 900 A.D.)

Represents an old god holding two ears of corn.

Height 27 cm; Diameter 23 cm.

Height 14.5 cm; Diameter 18 cm.

Height 10.5 cm; Diameter 15.3 cm.

Height 13.7 cm; Width 5.5 cm.
Height 16.5 cm; Width 7 cm.

Height 19 cm; Width 16 cm.

Height 29 cm; Width 15.5 cm.

Height 12 cm; Width 8.5 cm.

Museo Popol Vuh

Place of Origin: Eastern Petén (Yaxha-Holmul-Xultun corridor), Guatemala
Overall: Diam: 37.2 cm (14 5/8 in.)
Earthenware; pink, black and orange slip decoration
 

"Supported on tall rattle feet, the tondo boldly painted with a corpulent lord standing before a large bench throne, looking over his right shoulder with strong arms in a gesture, wearing loincloth, jade necklace and earrings, the headdress of a snouted monster head with thick feather panache at back, the bench laden with tribute including a stack of bound codices, a plumed perforator resting on top, and a mirror propped against them, the rim encircled by four bands each with a profile head of the long-lipped monster, the exterior rim decoratively painted with alternating scroll and mat motifs/ the whole with areas highlighted by pink pigment against the black and orange." [from Sotheby's catalogue text]

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: El Petén, Guatemala, El Mirador Basin
7.8 x 9.7 x 3 cm (3 1/16 x 3 13/16 x 1 3/16 in.)
Earthenware: red and black on cream slip paint
 

Codex-style "pigment jar" decorated on each side with a hieroglyph that resembles a ritual calendar (the tzolk'in) date 13-?.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Guatemala
6.2 x 6 x 7.2 cm (2 7/16 x 2 3/8 x 2 13/16 in.)
Earthenware: white slip paint
 

Human male head with goatee. Fragment of a larger object, perhaps a figurine or effigy vessel.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Place of Manufacture: El Petén, Guatemala, central Petén lowlands
9.4 x 25 cm (3 11/16 x 9 13/16 in.)
Earthenware: red, pink, black and white on cream ground
 

This bowl is painted with four pictorial scenes and the longest hieroglyphic text in the known corpus (as of 2004) of Classic Maya painted ceramics (composed of 88 glyphs). The scenes depict esoteric rituals whose participants are both supernatural and human. The text recounts events in mythological time as well as the accession to the throne of a lord from an unknown site in the central Petén lowlands of Guatemala. His name also is painted on the walls of Naj Tunich Cave in southeastern Guatemala. The painter's name and titles are included near the end of the text. The interior of the bowl is painted with a horizontal band of disembodied human eyeballs and crossed bones resembling human femurs.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Globular vase with annular base. Each side of vase is embellished with a pictorial scene, each of which depicts the presentation of gifts/tribute by one male to another. The seated figures lean against decorated pillows, and a zoomorphic waterlily icon defines the bottom register of each scene. The presented objects include a jadeite bead necklace and a panache of quetzal feathers.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Height 12 cm; Width 7.3 cm.

Height 27.5 cm; Width 10.5 cm