**Originally Listed At $800**

Pre-Columbian, Maya, Ulua Valley, Honduras, ca. 550 to 900 CE. A large cylinder jar with two carinated ridges on its body demarcating registers of repeated motifs, all painted in red, black, orange, and a paler orange. The upper and lower register feature repeated pyramid motifs, instantly recognizable with their stepped forms leading to a platform. The pyramid was not, as in Egypt, primarily a tomb, but instead was a temple, and invoking that motif was sign of status and prestige. Below those, the central motifs include repeated feathered serpents, representations of the god Kukulkan (Quetzalcoatl in Nahuatl, sometimes called Gukumatz in parts of the Maya world). Each has a fierce face with a long snout and horn-like projections from its forehead surrounded by a spray of feathers. Size: 6.25" W x 7.9" H (15.9 cm x 20.1 cm)

For the Maya, extraordinary painted ceramic vases like this example were gifted to elite individuals, akin to the gifts exchanged between high profile dignitaries today. Vases were a functional gift, created by artist/scribes who came from elite families and who took pains to recreate the stories of Mayan mythology and religion as well as to depict royal and godly personages in their artwork. This artwork reinforced the ruling ideology and reminded the viewer of what was valuable in Mayan society. Today, they teach us about the stories that were important to the Maya and also give us clues to how elite people lived and dressed. Scholars have painstakingly worked to decipher the meaning of the iconography and glyphs painted on cylinder jars and we know much more about them than we did even twenty years ago.

The Ulua Valley is sometimes referred to as the Mesoamerican Frontier, the place where the lowlands of the Maya met the lower part of Central America and its different cultures. They are famous for producing marble and polychrome ceramic cylinders that were traded far and wide.

Provenance: private D. C. collection, California, USA; D. C. is an Emmy Award winning Hollywood writer and Executive Producer, collected before 2000

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#126407

Repaired from two pieces, with the repair almost impossible to see. Nice detail and pigment remaining, with manganese deposits across the body.