Newsletter: Spring 1988

Carved in deep relief from black and white speckled granite, each of the three sides of the yoke is decorated with a head wearing a jaguar headdress, which continues over the top of the yoke in a deeply carved and beautifully stylized pattern; the head in the center of the yoke also wears large circular earspools. The faces are grotesquely contorted with mouths agape and tongues extended as if in pain. In each of the faces, one eye is gouged out and the other swollen, an indication of ritual torture. The nose and cheek on the side of the face with the swollen eye are deeply furrowed, per haps a detail that simply emphasizes the agonized contortions of the features, al though the opposed sides of the faces might have a deeper symbolic meaning. Hands extend from either side of the central head and grasp, with a menacing urgency, the intertwined serpentine body of a monstrous creature, a double-headed jaguar who is seen in profile at either end of the yoke, closing the composition. A foot extends from the roof of each fearsome mouth, perhaps part of the tortured figure devoured and regurgitated by the mythic beast. There are traces of red coloring, specular hematite, rubbed into the stone. The effect of the yoke is quite overwhelming, suggestive of the power of architectural reliefs and decora tions and the life-and-death imperatives of the ballgame.