Mayan Art Megathread

[Warden]

Found an interesting article from National Geographic entitied "Maya Shrine Reveals Arrival of a New World Order."

From the Mayan Site of El Achiotal:

 

[Lord-Marcus]

Got any resources on Mayan mummies?

 

[n810]

Goggle up Peru and mummies,
... lot of scary mummies.

 

[Lord-Marcus]

Goggle up Peru and mummies,
... lot of scary mummies.

Define scary, those are cool

 

[Warden]

Goggle up Peru and mummies,
... lot of scary mummies.

Yup Mayans never really had mummies so far as I know, that was more restricted to the Andes Mountains region.

The Mayans did have tons of elaborate burials though, not the least of which includes King Pacal (first post on this thread) and tons of other Mayan kings, queens, and nobility buried inside elaborate pyramids. In fact Mayan pyramids were often used as the burial chambers of ruling monarchs.

 

[Aginor]

So the main use of the pyramids was as temples but they used them also for burial purposes?
Sooo.. pretty much inverted from what the Aegyptians did IIRC.

 

[Lord-Marcus]

So the main use of the pyramids was as temples but they used them also for burial purposes?
Sooo.. pretty much inverted from what the Aegyptians did IIRC.

Well, the Egyptians never used them as temples, but you could consider them more of a place of worship in that they did practice a form of ancestor worship

 

[Aginor]

Yeah for Egyptians it isn't quite as easy to distinguish between what is a place of worship and what isn't.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

 

[Warden]

So the main use of the pyramids was as temples but they used them also for burial purposes?
Sooo.. pretty much inverted from what the Aegyptians did IIRC.

Yeah for Egyptians it isn't quite as easy to distinguish between what is a place of worship and what isn't.

The Mayans had both. Many of their temples were larger structures built over older ceremonial burial structures. Often these early remains had the buried bodies of their most important ancestors or city founders. Then again in other cases whole structures were built for the burial of a specific important individual. such as King Pacal's tomb or some of the temples of Tikal. Though serving as a repository for these kingly remains, they continued to be used as places of worship, often invoking their departed king/ancestors to intercede with the goings on of the living.

 

[Lord-Marcus]

I don't know if you watch agents of shield Warden. Honestly I don't. I watched an episode for funsies and they found a tesseract weapon in an "Incan" temple

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

 

[Lord-Marcus]

The Mayans had both. Many of their temples were larger structures built over older ceremonial burial structures. Often these early remains had the buried bodies of their most important ancestors or city founders. Then again in other cases whole structures were built for the burial of a specific important individual. such as King Pacal's tomb or some of the temples of Tikal. Though serving as a repository for these kingly remains, they continued to be used as places of worship, often invoking their departed king/ancestors to intercede with the goings on of the living.

Where did the Mayans bury the majority of thier dead?

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

 

[Warden]

For once I have actually posted some pics before the mighty @NIGHTBRINGER ! Saw these a little bit ago when the Assassin's Creed Black Flag came out. Really inspirational stuff there.

Interesting how the artist just duplicated King Pacal's sarcophagus lid multiple times along the back wall of the temple.

Where did the Mayans bury the majority of thier dead?

Kings and some members of the royal family/nobility were often buried in purpose-built structures, whether that was inside of a pre-existing stucture such as a temple or being laid to rest in a pyramid built specifically to house their remains (like King Pacal of Palenque).

The rest of society (peasants and including the nobles) were normally buried in the floors of their families' houses, or in the little plots of land just outside. I am guessing this was a way for the Maya to be close to their ancestors.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

 

[Lord-Marcus]

For once I have actually posted some pics before the mighty @NIGHTBRINGER ! Saw these a little bit ago when the Assassin's Creed Black Flag came out. Really inspirational stuff there.




Interesting how the artist just duplicated King Pacal's sarcophagus lid multiple times along the back wall of the temple.



Kings and some members of the royal family/nobility were often buried in purpose-built structures, whether that was inside of a pre-existing stucture such as a temple or being laid to rest in a pyramid built specifically to house their remains (like King Pacal of Palenque).

The rest of society (peasants and including the nobles) were normally buried in the floors of their families' houses, or in the little plots of land just outside. I am guessing this was a way for the Maya to be close to their ancestors.

Interesting! I would have thought the nobles would be housed in some form of mastaba.

Awesome artwork

 

[Warden]

Beautiful rendering/refurbishment of the murals of Bonampak:



Also this random one of pinterest evokes New World ruins really well: