mexico, state of campeche (?), maya culture Lidded bowl with a man riding a peccary c. ad 250–550 Ceramic 9 1/* × 6N in. diam. (23.2 × 15.9 cm) Dallas Art Association purchase, 197 2.10.a–b
The ancient Maya believed that their gods remade the cosmos on August 13, 3114 bc, after a great flood destroyed an earlier creation attempt. On this pot, the wizened old man riding the peccary, or wild pig, is Itzamnaaj, one of the most important deities in the pantheon of the ancient Maya. The specific legend linking Itzamnaaj and the peccary is not known, but the wild pig is a Maya symbol of the constellation we call Gemini, or the Twins. According to the Classic period Maya, the first human being, One-Maize-Revealed, was born at the center of the night sky on August 13, when the peccary constellation and other important star patterns clustered at the heart of heaven.
mexico or guatemala, maya culture Lidded tetrapod bowl with paddler and peccaries c. ad 250–550 Ceramic and cinnabar 12 × 9N in. diam. (30.5 × 23.5 cm) The Roberta Coke Camp Fund, 1988.82.a–b
Between ad 250 and 550, Maya potters made distinctive sculptural containers that are eloquent expressions of their cosmos. The figure atop this vessel sits in a canoe, a paddle in his hands and a fish on his back. The four-petaled k’in sign on his head, the symbol for day or sun, suggests he is the Maya sun god, K’inich Ajaw. Each of the four legs of the vessel is in the form of the head of the piglike peccary, shown with its blunt snout down. This vessel can be interpreted as depicting the sun god as he canoes past the peccaries in Gemini at the ecliptic, the path of the sun through the constellations.
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