Maya Art

This chapter proposes a historical reconstruction of Chichen Itza during the Terminal Classic period that combines recent ceramic and archaeological data with contemporary epigraphic studies. Through this reconstruction, we argue that we can clarify the understanding of the site’s internal dynamics and of the chronological relationship between its Maya or “Puuc” and Internationalstyle constructions, as well as of the site’s overall impact on northern Yucatan

Maya Blue is a colour that is more than a pigment; it had roles in status, ritual and performance, being daubed onto pots and people before sacrifice. Here researchers use experimental and historical evidence to discover how it was made, including direct scientific analysis of Maya Blue on a pot thrown into the sacred well at Chichén Itzá. The results indicate that the formation of the color was actually part of the ritual.

This is the first volume to bring together archaeology, ethnography, and art history in the analysis of pre-Columbian pottery. While previous research on ceramics has been divided among these three disciplines, this volume shows that integrating approaches provides new understandings of many different aspects of Ancient American societies. 

Contributors from a variety of backgrounds in these fields explore what ceramics can reveal about ancient social dynamics, trade, ritual, politics, innovation, iconography, and regional styles. Essays identify supernatural and humanistic beliefs through formal analysis of Lower Mississippi Valley "great serpent" effigy vessels, costume and dress in Moche art, and Ecuadorian depictions of the human figure. They discuss the cultural identity conveyed by imagery such as Andean head motifs, and they analyze symmetry in designs from locations including the American Southwest. Chapters also take diachronic approaches—methods that track change over time—to ceramics from Mexico’s Tarascan State and the Valley of Oaxaca, as well as from Maya and Toltec societies. 

This volume provides a much-needed multidisciplinary synthesis of current scholarship on Ancient American ceramics. It is a model of how different research perspectives can together illuminate the relationship between these material artifacts and their broader cultural contexts.

"In its broad topical and geographical scope, this volume demonstrates the many ways scholars can productively study ancient ceramics and the diversity of questions their studies can address."—Christopher A. Pool, coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology

"Expansive in scope, including cases spanning millennia and traversing North, Central, and South America, this interdisciplinary collection of essays demonstrates that ceramic objects, all too often marginalized as minor arts or the fodder of stratigraphic seriation, reward close and deep study."—Bryan R. Just, author of Dancing into Dreams: Maya Vase Painting of the Ik’ Kingdom