Pre-Columbian, southeastern Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula, Campeche, Jaina Island, Late Classic Period, ca. 600 to 850 CE. A fabulous, hand-modeled standing ceramic figure depicting a high-status male dignitary. He stands upon sandaled feet and wears a folded knee-length skirt below rounded shoulders and bent arms. His rounded head presents a classic Mayan visage composed of almond eyes, a perky nose, pursed lips, and smooth cheeks, all framed by the drooping tassels and diagonal back flaps of the tall and intricate headdress. Traces of red-orange and black pigmentation adorned most of the highly-burnished exterior, making this an opulent and finely-sculpted example of Mayan-era artistry! Custom wooden display stand included. Size: 3" W x 8.75" H (7.6 cm x 22.2 cm); 9.625" H (24.4 cm) on included custom stand.

Jaina figures, from an island off the Yucatan Peninsula, are noted for their lifelike faces and their immense detail. The clothing that this figure wears almost certainly copies the real clothing of a person in the Late Classic Maya period. These figures suggest that they are representative of actual people, some of which were produced in Campeche and brought to Jaina Island to be buried with the dead. Fascinatingly, the people around Jaina are the only people in southeastern Mesoamerica who put human figures into graves - figures have only been found in domestic contexts most everywhere else in this region.

The use of human figures immediately calls to mind the earlier West Mexican cultures that had extensive figures made solely to be placed in their shaft tombs. Scholars believe that Jaina figures represented real individuals, especially these hand-modeled examples (some later ones were made in a bivalve mold). The Spaniard Diego de Landa, who recorded details of Mayan life shortly after the Spanish Conquest, wrote that artists who created pieces like this one lived lives of religious isolation as well as ritual fasting and abstention.

This piece has been tested using thermoluminescence (TL) analysis and has been found to be ancient and of the period stated. A full report will accompany purchase.

Provenance: private Southern California, USA collection, acquired in the 1970s to mid-1980s

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#140913

Figure repaired at waist line, and small repairs to one foot and headdress back flaps, with small chips, light restoration, and overpainting along break lines. Losses to both hands and parts of feet, with chips and nicks to legs, body, arms, and head, fading to original pigmentation, and light encrustations. Nice earthen deposits, great manganese blooms, and traces of original pigmentation throughout. Three probe holes: beneath skirt, behind right shoulder, and behind neck on left.