Mayan Art Megathread

Mayan cosmology.

 

Colorful Long Count date, parts of it written in extended glyph format.

 

Altar, I think from Copan?

 

Quite true. I couldn't find good descriptions off this site, I think it came from a game originally. Interesting pictures though.

A lizard of Copan, I think I have posted another view of this guy, but he bears repeating.

 

Some Mayan statues, starting with a terra cotta "Napoleon"



Palenque incense burner:



Figure under a shell:

Spoiler: mayan statues

Temple of the Warriors, Chichen Itza:



Animorph head:

 

Stone statue from Copan:



Small stela/carving from Piedras Negras, Guatemala:

 

Carvings from Holmul:

 

And some great carved figures from the ruins of Ek Balam.

 

So referring back to the "globe" at the top of the map, I came across a great video concerning the Aztec creation myth.



So here are a few pictures to go along with this. Aztecs had four directional gods, each with a specific color:

North- Tezcatlipoca- Black- Jaguars- Obsidian- Hurricanes- Chaos



West- Quetzalcoatl- White- Rain- Venus- Wisdom- Learning- Feathered Serpent



East- Xipe Totec- Red- Springtime- Farming- Disease- the Flayed One



South- Huitzilopochitli- Blue- War- Human Sacrifice- Hummingbird of the South




… now what I really liked was the description of the creation of the earth's land: Cipactli, the world crocodile.





According to the myth, the gods "killed" an eldritch, Cthulhu-style abomination, Cipactli, a giant crocodile with mouths on every joints and truly continental in size. After killing it, they begin to populate the earth with more gods and the first human creations. However Cipactli is not totally dead, and still hungers. To keep it pacified, the gods instruct humans to make blood sacrifices in order to literally keep the earth from eating all their creations.

That is insane. Totally going to use this concept.

More pics of Cipactli, though not quite as hugely scaled as the entire world.

Spoiler: Cipactli- the world crocodile

 

Small bit of artwork, from the Mayan Museum in Cancun

 

And a stela of King Pakal the Great of Palenque, receiving a crown from a woman, probably his mother. he is seated on a double-headed jaguar throne.

 

Part of Kaminaljuyu Stela 10:

 

Mayan warrior carving. I noticed the little "skull mask" in this guy's hand, I really like the idea of these guys wearing terrifying masks into battle. Considering how huge their feathered helmets already are, adding some creepy masks would only make their greatest warriors that much more terrifying to meet in person on the battlefield.

 

@Warden

The colors for the directions on the cosmos map are different from those in that list.

Is South Yellow or is South Blue?


(Map had:
Red-Black-White-Yellow

List had:
Red-Black-White-Blue)

 

You are quite correct. The map at the very top of this page was Mayan, the one from the video was Aztec.

Classical Mayan color cardinal directions, center being green and representing the World Tree:





Pre-colonial Aztec cardinal direction colors, with the center also being green just not depicted here:

Spoiler: aztec direction gods

In fact, most of the ancient cultures of the New World had one form or another of these colors, often in different combinations. Found this nifty chart off of a pdf paper online (The Personification of Celestial Water: The Many Guises of the Storm God in the Pantheon of Cosmology of Teotihuacan). I recommend it, great stuff.

 

Myths concerning Queztalcoatl