A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are some images from the Carlos Pellicer Museum, the state of Tabasco's regional anthropology museum.


Featuring ancient Olmec and Maya Art and Sculpture

Maya incense burners decorated with a mythical creature, half jaguar, half Sun God.

Most of the Maya incense burner lids from this museum picture the Jaguar God of the Underworld. This deity is recognized by the cruller under his eye, a feline ear, and, as in this statue, other feline associations. Actually the clawed limbs you see here are from a feline throne on which this mythical character is seated.

The "cruller" is the thick cord of clay which goes under the eyes and loops between the two eyes.

Image Menu (each of these images are links)

Recently I saw several exquisite examples of Tabasco-Palenque style incense burner lids in Europe. Two were definite forgeries. I was told that four or five more were in New York. Whoever has them needs to realize that they need to be checked since, so far, most of this bunch were clever forgeries. This particular batch was the most sophisticated near-perfect pre-Columbian art that I have seen in 30 years.

We have been photographing at this wonderful museum for over 12 years. FLAAR photographs of the sculpture from Tabasco museums have been used (with permission) by Karl Herbert Mayer, Graz, Austria in his monographs on Maya sculpture.

Would you like to see the entire Pellicer Museum collection published in a coffee table book? So would we, and we already have 85% of the collection photographed. We always welcome encouragement, especially from benefactors, sponsors, and individuals as well as corporations who realize that their contribution can make a tremendous difference.