utställningsaffisch, fotografi, photograph

The poster shows a sieated female figure, a royal Maya woman. Probably from the Museum in Mexico City (objects in the 1992 exhibition were from this museum). This figurine also probably functioned as a whistle, with the mouthpiece cleverly hidden in the coiffure of the subject and an opening on the figure’s right shoulder. The woman crosses her legs which are covered by a long skirt. Her hands rest on her shins and she wears cuffs composed of tubular beads, likely depicting jadeite or greenstone. Other jade ornaments are depicted, including an earflare assemblage. She wears a long necklace that may be composed of fine cloth or leather with tubular beads, further underscoring her status as part of a royal court. She sits upright, wearing a flowing off-the-shoulder huipil blouse or cape (or, perhaps a garment known in Nahuatl as quechquémitl). The garment, modeled separately from the body, retains the original fingerprints of the figurine’s maker in multiple places. Her hair is cut in a stepped formation that frames the face.

Hand-modeled and molded figurines were an integral part of ancient Maya ritual, both in life and in funerary contexts. Potters sometimes replicated full scenes of courtly life in reduced scale, with figurines for kings, queens, and courtiers such as scribes, performers, and even supernatural personalities. More than representations and instruments, figurines also held a deeply sacred significance. The woman’s naturalistic face here emphasizes the connection of human depictions with those of the Maize deities; Classic Maya people practiced cranial modification to create the high sloping forehead as a symbolic reference to the maize cob and agricultural fertility.

Many such figures, whistles, and rattles are known from the small island of Jaina, Campeche, Mexico, where numerous burials contained such objects as funerary offerings. Recent archaeological discoveries have confirmed that the “Jaina-style” Maya figurines were produced over a wide geographic range throughout the Yucatan peninsula, and often exchanged. (Text based on thext from Metropolitan Museum with a similar figure, 1979.206.374)