Peg-based sculpture of a standing man,

350–100 BCE

This is one of the few known peg-based sculptures of standing men. Most are associated with Kaminaljuyú, a site now enveloped and largely destroyed by the urban sprawl of Guatemala City. Scholars believe that this particular sculpture was made in the environs of Patzún, today a small Kaqchikel Maya community about eighty kilometers (fifty miles) west of Kaminaljuyú. The lack of context makes these works difficult to resituate culturally, but they may have served as portraits of community leaders and been set into plazas or other ceremonial locations, perhaps accompanied by additional sculptures to re-create important historical or mythical narratives. This work and related sculptures have holes chiseled though the clenched hands, suggesting that some now-lost implements were inserted when in use. The arrangement of multiple sculptures and the possibility of changing the implements that the figures held suggest that these objects likely had varied meanings.