Interpretation
This vessel presents a frequently depicted but poorly understood mythological event. Chahk, the storm god, holds his axe in one hand and a stone in the other; the axe was thought to produce the crack of lightning, and the thumping of his stone, rolling thunder. Behind him sits a jaguar, holding one paw to his head in a gesture of mourning. A firefly, holding a flaming torch, floats above the jaguar. The large stylized head before Chahk represents Flower Mountain, a source of sustenance and vitality. Along the mountain’s curling snout tumbles a human infant with a jaguar tail. A skeletal death god gestures clumsily toward the baby.
Information
- Title
- Tripod vessel with baby jaguar sacrifice scene
- Object Number
- y1986-98
- Medium
- Ceramic and polychrome
- Dates
- 650–750 CE
- Dimensions
- h. 12.1 cm., diam. 13.6 cm. (4 3/4 x 5 3/8 in.)
- Catalog Raisonné
- K1003 MS1405
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
- Culture
- Maya
- Period
- Classic
- Place made
- North America, Guatemala, Petén, Maya area, Nakbé region
- Materials
- Francis Robiscek, The Maya Book of the Dead: The Ceramic Codex (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Art Museum, 1981)., Vessel 19 (illus.)
- Francis Robicsek, et al., The World Beyond: Maya Tomb Ceramics, Epcot Center Exhibition Catalogue (Orlando, Walt Disney Productions, 1984). , fig. 50
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1986," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 46, no. 1 (1987): p. 18–52, p. 50 (illus.)
- Barbara Kerr and Justin Kerr, "Some Observations on Maya Vase Painters," in Maya Iconography, eds. Elizabeth P. Benson and Gillett G. Griffin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988)., figs. 7.11b and 7.13b, pp. 236–259 (illus.)
- Francis Robicsek and Donald Hales, "A Ceramic Codex Fragment: The Sacrifice of Xbalanque," in Maya Iconography, eds. Elizabeth P. Benson and Gillett G. Griffin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988): 260-276., fig. 8.3, pp. 260–276 (illus.)
- Joanne M. Spero, "Beyond Rainstorms: The Kawak as an Ancestor, Warrior, and Patron of Witchcraft," in Sixth Palenque Round Table, 1986, Volume VIII, ed. Merle Greene Robertson (Normal: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991): 145-155., fig. 12 (illus.)
- Ana García Barrios, "Chaahk, el Dios de la Lluvia, en el Periodo Clásico Maya: Aspectos Religiosos y Políticos" (PhD diss. unpublished, Universidad Compultense de Madrid, 2008)., fig. 3.110a (illus.)
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