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K'iché burial or cache urn base
Maya
Late Classic Period
A.D. 650–850
Object Place: K'iche, Guatemala, Southern Highlands
Medium/Technique
Earthenware: white, black, yellow, and red paint
Dimensions
116.8 x 71.1 cm (46 x 28 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Landon T. Clay
Accession Number1988.1296b
CollectionsAmericas
ClassificationsCeramics – Pottery – Earthenware
This lid's figure has the cropped hair and T-shaped tooth of a solar deity. The meaning of the enigmatic supernatural emerging from the Xoc creature and the rows of humanoid heads remain mysterious, reminding us how little is known of Classic Maya religion.
Catalogue Raisonné
MS1090
DescriptionThe base of this burial or cache urn is decorated with a modeled and painted rendering of a scroll-eyed saurian with widely opened mouth. From its maw emerges an anthropomorphic supernatural being with scroll eyes, protruding canine teeth, and a long snout-like nose with an up-curved element attached to the nose bridge. Jaguar ears are found above his circular ear flares. He wears a thin headband decorated with four appliquéd disks, and two small human arms emerge from under his chin. Two vertical flanges flank the urn's sides, each decorated with two modeled and painted human heads whose long flowing hair may indicate they are war trophy heads. The body of the urn is painted red with black jaguar-like spots.
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.