Mayan Art Megathread

Profile of Pakal the Great's jade death mask:



Wow and also the 600th post on this thread??? That's a lot of Mayan art

 

Gorgeous Altar Q from Copan.



Super important altar. Built in 776 AD, has a dynastic record of the first 16 kings of the city.

Spoiler: Altar Q Copan

Drawing from Linda Schele:

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Top of the altar:

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Excellent. We're so lucky that any of that wood survived tbh. I've tried to replicate similar to the top of that altar on a small throne I've made, but then draped a fur over the bits which didn't work as well as i'd liked.

 

Tikal Stela 31

 

Mayan vase:

 

Artwork from the Temple of Tlahuizcalpatecuhtli, at Tula



Looks like two snake-birds kissing a head, oooor it could just be a squashed front-perspective shot.

 

Lots of glyphs:



Really like the animal/god/goddess ones.

 

I've a sudden urge to sculpt this...

 

Not quite sure where this is from, looks like the back of a throne perhaps?

 

Really nice set of sketches, inner workings of Copan:

 

Perhaps they're Linda Schele drawings...

 

Most likely. I find a lot of random sketches of hers on pinterest, but whenever I am looking for something specific I always go to FAMSI. Endless amount of pictures here.


Uxmal court from the sky, I have been there! Looks to be early morning, a lot of the mist is still hanging off in the distance.

 

Old article, but apparently liquid mercury was found in one of the tombs underneath Teotihuacan. Maybe they though it had magical properties? Like an elixir of life?

 

Yeah I use FAMSI for all my references for sculpting, mainly Palenque. A great loss, she was quite remarkable.

 

Temple of the Cross at Palenque:

 

Stela 1 at the Mayan site of El Baul.

Spoiler: Stela 1 El Baul Sketch

What is cool about this stela is that it is the oldest known Long Count date (7.19.15.7.12, or 6 March 36 CE).

If the Mayans were able to carve a date in the stone as early as 36 CE, it stands to reason that the calendar existed in written form, probably on bark paper books, long before this. And the concepts of the calendar were around probably even longer, potentially at least as far back as the fall of the Olmecs (~400 BC or sooner).

 

More Art from the Mayan site of El Baul.







Lots of death/skull related stuff here.



A ribcage!

Spoiler: more El Baul pics

 

Read about this one from the LiDAR discoveries, a Mayan fortress-city on a mountain. Would love to see what other discoveries come out of this place!





Name is La Cuernavilla (link to an article with the second picture, talks about how the lasers helped find these places)

Also, a La Corona stela being excavated (also from the above link):

 

Mayan city of El Tanjin, pyramid of the Niches





Great carving at the site: