Pre-Columbian, Mayan Territories, Peten Basin, Late Classic Period, ca. 550 to 900 CE. A ritual ceramic vessel with wonderful decoration. The overall surface is painted in shades of orange and black with geometric motifs and stylized "mat" symbols, encircled with a Primary Standard Sequence (PSS) band of glyphs below the red-painted rim. Size: 5.05" W x 6.8" H (12.8 cm x 17.3 cm)

This beautiful cylinder has all the hallmarks of a "codex style" vessel. The glyphs and iconography were hand drawn by a skilled artisan in a fine-line painting technique using a monochrome red slip that would have been made from clay mixed with plant-based compounds and possibly some iron oxide. Mayan scribes seem to have wanted to mark the ownership of valued things, and that is what registers of glyphs often give the owner's name and/or describe the item. Below the band of glyphs is a repeated, stylized "mat" symbol. Mat houses, called Popol Nah, were places where councils of nobles met. They often had their exteriors were marked with "mat" symbols like this vessel - see, for example, the façade of the Popol Nah at Copan with its thatched mat pattern that has been reconstructed from the fallen pieces found by the Copan Mosaic Project.

The Peten region was one of the most densely populated regions in the world during the Maya period, home to several million people and many powerful urban areas, each of which would have had their own Popol Nah for nobles to meet. This cylinder may have been used in one of them, belonging to an elite member of society, for the ritual drinking of chocolate.



Provenance: Ex-Private New York Collection; Ex-Sotheby's Pre-Columbian Art, November 20th, 1989, Lot 349

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#120904

One side has a stable crack with a missing chip from the rim at the top. Another stable crack partway down one side. Small areas of encrustation to interior; some wear to pigment on exterior surface and light root marks.