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Cylinder vase
Maya
Late Classic Period
A.D. 680–750
Place of Manufacture: northern Petén lowlands, Guatemala, Nakbé area, El Mirador Basin
Medium/Technique
Earthenware: brown-black and red on cream slip paint
Dimensions
13.2 x 12.8 cm (5 3/16 x 5 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Landon T. Clay
Accession Number1988.1180
CollectionsAmericas
ClassificationsCeramics – Pottery – Earthenware
This vessel illustrates a myth that did not survive in the seventeenth-century version of the Popul Vuh but which is painted on many codex-style vases. The tale recounts the seduction of the old god Wuk Zip's young wife by the youthful Maize god.
Catalogue Raisonné
MS1846; Kerr 1182
DescriptionCodex-style vase painted with a two-part scene comprising women riding deer and women attending a dying elderly male lying inside a building. The hieroglyphic texts include an attenuated version of the Primary Standard Sequence (including the vessel shape and contents sections) and a phrase recording the date and nature of the depicted event. The date is non-viable in the Classic Maya calendrical system, which is interpreted as indicating that the event took place in mythological time. If so, then we can conclude that the depicted figures are supernaturals or mythological beings.
InscriptionsPrimary Standard Sequence (attentuated); Calendar Round and verbal statement.
ProvenanceBetween about 1974 and 1981, probably purchased in Guatemala by John B. Fulling (b. 1924 – d. 2005), The Art Collectors of November, Inc., Pompano Beach, FL; May 20, 1987, sold by John B. Fulling to Landon T. Clay, Boston; 1988, year-end gift of Landon Clay to the MFA. (Accession Date: January 25, 1989)
NOTE: This is one in a group of Maya artifacts (MFA accession nos. 1988.1169 – 1988.1299) known as the “November Collection” after John Fulling’s company, the Art Collectors of November, Inc. John Fulling sold this group of objects to MFA donor Landon Clay in 1987, and they were given to the Museum the following year.
Evidence suggests that John Fulling built the November Collection from sources in Guatemala between 1974 and 1981. Only a portion of what he acquired during this time came to the MFA in 1988. It is not possible to determine precisely which objects were acquired when or from whom.
NOTE: This is one in a group of Maya artifacts (MFA accession nos. 1988.1169 – 1988.1299) known as the “November Collection” after John Fulling’s company, the Art Collectors of November, Inc. John Fulling sold this group of objects to MFA donor Landon Clay in 1987, and they were given to the Museum the following year.
Evidence suggests that John Fulling built the November Collection from sources in Guatemala between 1974 and 1981. Only a portion of what he acquired during this time came to the MFA in 1988. It is not possible to determine precisely which objects were acquired when or from whom.