Mayan Art Megathread

Found a bunch of fun stuff recently: Lego Mayan temples!

Well sort of... they cover a few different Lego generas, including pirate/islanders, adventure/indiana jones, plus some conquistadors. I found a lot of pictures so I will have to break this up over a few posts:

Spoiler

Doorway:

Spoiler

I like how the stairs are red in this one... someone just got their head chucked down the temple stairs!

Spoiler: A few more...

A pirate on a skull ruined island


A mesoamerican ballcourt!


Entrance to an island cave

 

Some Adventure/Indiana Jones themed legos, with a Mayan/Aztec/Inca twist:

I liked these, they look like an Inca sky-temple:

Spoiler

Temple in the jungle:


I liked the gorilla-head on this one:

Spoiler: More pics

Indiana Jones on a bridge... and running from a rock!




Baron von Baron has discovered one of the Lost Plaques of the Old Ones:


River boats:

 

Some conquistadors:



Trooping through the jungle; I like the stone stelae!



Looks a lot like the Temple of the Jaguar at Tikal:

Spoiler

Back of the pyramid:


Close up of the mouth-entrance:

 

People are very creative with legos! Some more jungle-art:

Spoiler

I like the hidden red and green ninjas on this one. Lots of tiny details, including the flowers and the crocodiles on the bottom. And of course the man-eating plant!

A fantastic jungle-river piece, this would make an amazing wargaming location!

Spoiler

Close-up of the ruins:




Another set of falls, I believe its another piece but it looks very similar:

Mayan Temple:

A jungle scene:

 

Ok last Legos for today: Egypt!

Though these don't have much to do with the Mayans, they are some epic lego pyramids...

Spoiler

Some slaves at work...





Raiders of the Lost Ark anyone??

I hope these last few posts give some good future terrain inspiration!

 

Always looking up more Mayan temples, found a few good computer-made designs:





I am pretty sure these two were originally built for a mayan-theme park and/or restaurant somewhere in Mexico. Cool designs!

 

Small-scale model of the city of Copan, pretty sure from the site itself:



Didn't have the translation unfortunately



Great model!

 

Small scale model of the city of Tikal:



Model of the palace at Palenque:

Spoiler: Actual Palace

Including this picture, even though it is the palace at Knossos (Crete), simply because it reminds me visually of the palace at Palenque:

 

Another great setup, from Tonina.



I also liked these two pieces of artwork, the second is from the El Dorado movie I think. its cool when the ruins are painted in red:

 

Some line-drawing art of Mayan temples that I will be using next time I make some more lizardmen temple-city terrain:

De Hormiguero:





Rio Bec:



Santa Rosa/Xtampak:



And Chiccana, which I already featured in my House-of-the-Serpent-Mouth:

 

Learned some more about the site Xtampak, pretty neat site in northern Yucatan. The palace, the main building of the site, was built all at the same time.



Three stories, 20 rooms on the first floor, 12+ on the second, and 7+ more on the third. Probably was a religious/administrative/ceremonial complex to rule the rest of the city from.

Spoiler: Xtampak

Layout of the Palace:

 

I have been doing more Mayan research recently, and came across a fantastic easy-to-use source that anyone wanting to do some quick look-ups on the Mayan dynasties could use:


Mayan Royal Dynasties (from FAMSI: Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies)



Its a PDF, and shows the names, glyphs, and some of the basic translation data on each of the Mayan rules from the following cities:

Calakmul
Caracol
Copan
Dos Pilas
Naranjo
Palenque
Piedras Negras
Quirigua
Tikal
Tonina
Yaxchilan


I have a few books that show the same data, but this is a useful link showing them all in one place! Here are some example pics from the city of Tikal, which I have used as one of the primary inspirations for my own temple city and the names of some of its citizens.


First page for each city shows an overall map of where in the Mayan World/Yucatan/Peten region the city is located, followed by a more zoomed-in map of the city itself. The city's "name glyph" is also depicted, along with the ancient name of the city (in this case: Tikal [modern], Mutal [ancient]).


The rest is a list of each of the known rulers of the city. Some are missing, and depending on the sources others are left out; but the list is very complete so far as I can tell! Included data are spellings, name glyphs, translations, as well as some family history and birth/ascension/death data.


I hope someone finds this interesting or useful! If the link doesn't work a quick internet search of "mayan royal dynasties" should bring it up too.

 

Found a small picture of a Mayan ballgame in full progress, I liked the colors but sadly can't find a bigger picture.



Also another 3D pictures of Xtampak from an earlier post on this page, a more 3D depiction of what it may have looked like:

 

I have been in an indexing mood recently, and because I have been having a hard time finding things on this thread I created a new index. I tried to cite the various forumites who have also added pictures. I hope others have found the pictures on this thread as inspirational as I have!

 

Been a while for this thread, I am still reading as always but no time for posting.

Interesting article I found today about this picture:



As much as it LOOKS like an ancient long-lost Mayan plaque, potentially depicting an Atlantis-destruction myth... it looks a bit fake to me.

Three Things I immediately noticed from looking at the picture:

1) The boat. Doesn't look like the Mayan canoe I have seen in the artwork before, it looks like someone drew in an imaginative turtle shell. The paddles don't look right either. Here is a picture I have, I will need to find the source, to show what I mean. This depicts the Mayan paddler gods (frequently depicted in Mayan artwork) rowing a boat with several spirit-animals on their way to the underworld:



Doesn't look the same to me.

2) Perspective. Unlike European artwork, which developed perspective (depth) in their artwork over many centuries, the Mayans never had time to develop this concept in their artwork or their stonework. Here is an example of a Mayan stelae (from the Kimbell art museum, I have seen this one in real life )



This carving shows all the Mayans in the portrait on the same plane of the picture. The artist was unable to show a room in depth, with the king in the background, the supplicant (to the right) walking towards him, and the other attendants on either side. Instead they are arrayed to show each picture in detail, and that's about it.

Another good example is the amazing battle scene of Bonampak. Lots of detail, but all on a 2D artist plane, and no sense of depth or real scale at all, something the photograph DOES show with the volcano in the far background.



3) Alleged origin at Tikal. That's where it the picture was from: a carving at Tikal. It doesn't look like any Mayan carving from the city at Tikal that I have ever seen. There are too many to actually depict here, but here is a favorite of mine:



More pictures and info on Stela 31 on page 5, but suffice to say even though Tikal has a ton of different stela and carving styles throughout there history, the guy in the photo doesn't match any I have seen. Even the feathers on the rower's helmet look fake, something out of a north-american headdress rather an an ancient Mayan carving. And no hieroglyphs!? Granted not all the glyph inscriptions survived to the modern day, but not even a single one? Or a fragment of one? Suspicious...


So in summary, this picture looks like it was a drawing someone in the modern day created.


Here are some good articles on the topic, in case you are interested! The authors did a lot more research into the Mayan-Atlantis myths than I did.

Did the Maya Depict the End of Atlantis at Tikal?

Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya?

Big thing I learned from them was the Mayan-revival style invented in around the 20s or 30s during the Art Deco area. I have seen artwork and architecture like this in San Antonio, TX before, I hope I can find more examples in the future!

 

I came across this site again recently: Lagunita

Apparently its located in a secret location in Honduras. The location is "secret" because the site is so new, and the archaeologists who found it are afraid it is going to get pillaged before they have a chance to truly study these untouched ruins.



Potentially an as-yet undeciphered stelae that I can't really make out due to photo quality, but it looks beautiful:



Hidden in the jungles of Honduras:



Archaeologist Ivan Sprajc (Slovenian archaeologist who got credit for rediscovering the site)

Spoiler: More pictures of Lagunita

Overgrown lost temple:





Stone face carving, possibly a mountain monster? (witz)







Chultun: rainwater catcher

 

I had the luck of being in Chichen Itza! Thank you for bring that memories back to my head again!!

PD: I apologize if I am entering in off topic, but do you have pictures or references about OLMEC warrior¨s costumes?