www.Maya-archaeology.org is the
premier Internet site for scholarly analysis of Maya art of Guatemala,
Belize, Honduras, and Mexico. Extensive photography of Maya art in Guatemala
allows us to present colorful rollout photographs of previously unpublished
Maya vases from the Popol Vuh Museum.
Iconography is a specialty within
either anthropology, art history, or archaeology which studies the meaning
of art (usually the meaning of designs, figures, decorations on the
art of a past epoch). The scenes painted on these vases reveal the sacred
symbol of Maya kingship, based on the design of the petate, a woven
frond design of matting. The Maya and Aztec used the design of the woven
mat as a symbol of kingship.
The
mat, a twisted frond, is the symbol of the petate which covered the
floor or thrones in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The word for seat in
Mayan language and hieroglyphs was pop. The Popol Vuh Museum uses the
pop, or regal mat, as their logo. Rollout photographs here show two
polychrome Maya vases from the Museo Popol Vuh with these mat symbols.
Link to rollout
of Hun Hunahpu, father of the Hero Twins.
Link to rollout of Maya vase showing Maya
bat man from Tikal in honor of Ruler A.
The FLAAR Photo Archive has been
studying the Mayan ceramic art and hieroglyphic inscriptions in the
Popol Vuh Museum for over two decades. Indeed we were photographing
this material before the museum was even formed, since we worked on
finding the initial house in which the museum was situated before it
moved to more formal quarters first in Zone 9 and now in Zone 10.
To
read about the mat and pop, the best book is by Francis Robicsek. You
can find this book in most libraries (it is long out of print and hence
not available inbookstores nor on the Internet).
Museo
Popol Vuh
Universidad
Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala City
The vase rolled out here is the
style popular in the 8th and 9th centuries A.D. in the middle reaches
of the Motagua River. Experts on the pre-Columbian pottery of the Middle
Motagua are Dr Guillermo Mata and Dr Gary Rex Walters.
Nicholas Hellmuth is preparing a
book on the rollouts of this area of the Highlands of Guatemala.
