Mayan Art Megathread

One more for today, I haven't been there yet but apparently at Chichen Itza they have a scale model on site. They got a very good view of the Great Cenyote and everything!



Would be a cool place for a Lizardmen battle...

Spoiler: Chichen Itza diorama

 

A bit of inspiration from some historical miniatures, mostly showing the conquest of Tenochtitlan by the Spanish Conquistadors.

Some pyramids in the distance:



Market Street:



Causeway entrance to the city itself, looks like a nice matte-painting for the background:

Spoiler: More Aztec Miniatures

War canoes facing off against the Spanish rowboats:



Another view of the Market street, I like the little pumpkins and gourds scattered around the bases.



Side view of the causeway:



Warriors in the streets, good view of Aztec houses, basically just some blocks:



Good side view of the marketplace and one of the temples.

 

A few more miniatures that didn't fit in the last post.

Same Aztec diorama from before, you can see the burning censer bearers on the top of the temple stairs as well as the snake statues peeking out:



Skull rack! Would make a great terrain piece, just so many skulls...

Spoiler: skull rack

Also some Mayan miniatures, sadly no diorama to go with it.

A sacrifice in progress, looks reminiscent of an altar located in real-world Copan.



Mayan warriors, looks like they are multibased for kings of war!

Spoiler: more Mayan warriors

Another painted version of the sacrifice on the altar:

 

Spoiler: not sure if you realized, but this is a physical model too.

Yea, that the real thing (pyramid of the sun) on the other side of the window.

 

Yes that is a fantastic one! That is the Teotihuacan model I believe, I think this is a picture from a different angle:



Crazy how huge it is. You wouldn't be able to fit this on your dining room table for a quick warhammer game...

Epic background, amazing that they put it within the view of the actual pyramid

 

ah yea that was the angle I was looking for.

Ps. you would be hard pressed to fit this into a convention center.

 

So this thing has an interesting history:



It is a small stone bearded head, found in the ruins of Calixtlahuaca in Mexico (an Aztec city) in the 1930s. Further testing has uncovered that the head was buried in the tomb between 1476 and 1510.

BUT the stone head doesn't look Aztec/Mayan at all! In fact, when it was first spotted by the archaeologists on site, they were convinced it was Roman. Further testing in the 90s gave proof that this artifact was in fact matching the styles of Roman art in the 2nd Century AD, and was quite possibly created between 193-235 AD!!!!!

So what does this mean? The article has more information (apologies if I got stuff wrong), but I can see three possibilities:

1) Most likely this was a hoax, planted on the original archaeologists by someone else on there team. By the time testing was done in the latter half of the 20th century, no one was left to verify this was the truth however, and records are shoddy.

2) This ancient artifact was traded to the Aztecs when the Spanish arrived in the New World. This theory has big problems since the Spanish conquerors did not arrive in large numbers to the Mexican coast until 1519; though some Spanish colonies in the Caribbean did exist before then. And in addition to this, WHY would the Spanish trade an article of ancient Roman origin to the Aztecs? Why not just give them beads, instead they parted with this ancient statue??

3) Ancient Romans in the years/centuries following the 2nd Century brought it to the New World on an ancient lost expedition. While hard to believe, the ancient Romans and Greeks (and other cultures of the Mediterranean) were very accomplished seafarers. There are many documented expeditions going as far as the Canary Islands (there might even have been ancient Greek/Roman Colonies there? I would have to check this). It is plausible/possible that there were other, undocumented Roman expeditions that tried to go further... maybe so far as to make it to ancient Mexico and visit the Olmecs, but then never return back to Rome. After all, the sea is treacherous. Sadly, there is no way to archaeologically prove this happened so long ago, plus the fact there are no extant records of an ancient Roman expedition making it to the New World over a thousand years before Columbus "discovered" it.

This artifact remains a mystery, as the article states it will remain an anomaly that suggests ancient contact between the Old World and the New World.




Edit: Apparently there is also one found at Comalcalco too.

 

Some cool concept art from Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Don't think I have posted all of these yet so here they are.



Good terrain inspiration!

Spoiler

 

Also random, some old Marvel comics that featured some space/mayan/hindu/alien construct creatures that looked pretty cool. I liked the color in the first one, but the second one has a pretty neat looking altar.

 

Recently I read the book Lightning Warrior by Matthew Looper, concerning Mayan kingship and art in Quirigua, an ancient Mayan city near Copan. Lots of great pictures and inspiration in this book.

Spoiler: Book Cover

Spoiler: Quirigua artwork

A bound captive:


Some translation work:


Looks like a witz-monster face:


Stela D drawing and picture:


Drawing of one of the giant zoomoprh carvings at Quirigua:


Face of one of the stela:



A little random, but I like the hummingbird drawings on the chapter pages.

 

Very nice map layout of Copan, from the same book as the previous post. I would definitely recommend the book to any one who really REALLY wants to get in depth with Mayan art/architecture and the huge amount of symbolism and history behind them.

 

Some nice inspiration pictures of Xunantunich (in Belize) for reference. I went there once, but these aren't my pics (didn't have a helicopter)

Spoiler: Xunantunich

Edit: actually this one doesn't look like Xunantunich, I think it might be Tonina or Calakmul. Xunantunich didn't have three minor temples at the top of it.

 

Some nice pictures of Mayan temples out of another history book.

Yaxchilan:

Spoiler: close up

Also a temple of Calakmul. It doesn't look the same as the picture in the previous post though, but still would be an epic terrain piece.

 

Cool Mayan-eqsue face:

Spoiler

Mayan jade face:

Spoiler: more pics

 

I've been looking up quetzals for inspiration for painting my terradons.



Quetzal birds were very prevalent in classic Mayan times, and featured a great bit in their dress and in their stone artwork.

Headdresses:



Glyph:

Spoiler: glyphs and stone feathers

Artwork from Palenque:



The quetzal was also one of the main components of the Great Bird Deity, one of the mythical creatures of the Mayan cosmos.

Spoiler: more quetzal reference pictures

And another modern-day headdress reproduction:

 

It is late for me, so please forgive if this is in the past 12 pages...

So I recently acquired an interesting book, "Heaven's Mirror" by Graham Hancock. A quick look-see seems this might be right up your alley Warden. He has a few others on similar subjects, and this one does cover some non-Mayan things such as ancient Cambodia, but as a whole it looks fantastic and I can hardly wait for the time to delve right into it. Check your local library or perhaps university library.

 

It sounds interesting, I will have to check out a review!

Normally I am more of a fan of the art/actual history than the alien/pseudo-history. Despite there is a TON of information about the ancient Maya or other ancient civilizations, there is a lot of information we actually DO know, such as how to read their language, their rituals, calendar and astrological systems, and construction techniques. I do enjoy the alien stuff, that is one of the most fantastic things about the Lizardmen (to paraphrase the mighty @pendrake , I have an army of Lizards; its home base is a lost city in a steamy, swampy jungle... who live in space pyramids), but when I started reading and learning about the actual real-world cultures I was hooked!

 

^lots of UFO looking images.... WAIT .... is he riding a bicycle ???