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Source Description
The small skull effigy pendant was made by the Maya of the Pacific Slopes of Guatemala. Similar in size, artistic quality, imagery, and function to the earlier Olmec pendant (2009.20.231), this expressive ornament demonstrates the continuity among later Mesoamerican peoples of body adornments functioning as symbols of identity, status, and power. This remarkably delicate pendant connotes the Mesoamerican ideology of death and rebirth as a central principle of the universe's natural cycle. It may also pertain to the shamanic journey between worlds, the shaman's passage to the supernatural realm being likened to death and rebirth.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
80376
label
Skull Effigy Pendant
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
2
Source metadata
id
80376
contentType
object
stage
normalized
title
Skull Effigy Pendant
description
The small skull effigy pendant was made by the Maya of the Pacific Slopes of Guatemala. Similar in size, artistic quality, imagery, and function to the earlier Olmec pendant (2009.20.231), this expressive ornament demonstrates the continuity among later Mesoamerican peoples of body adornments functioning as symbols of identity, status, and power. This remarkably delicate pendant connotes the Mesoamerican ideology of death and rebirth as a central principle of the universe's natural cycle. It may also pertain to the shamanic journey between worlds, the shaman's passage to the supernatural realm being likened to death and rebirth.
provenance
Jorge Castillo [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Throckmorton Fine Art, New York [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; John G. Bourne, July 26, 1995, by purchase; given to Walters Art Museum, 2014.
date
300 BCE - 100 CE (?) or possibly 20th century
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Ceramics
masks (costume)
pendants
imageCount
2
pageCount
2
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
6.5
height
3.7
depth
1.9
dimensionsRaw
H: 2 9/16 x W: 1 7/16 x D: 3/4 in. (6.51 x 3.65 x 1.91 cm)
Source extras
cul
Maya
med
burnished earthenware
creator_ids
4619
collection_ids
AME
exhibition_ids
none
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
05507f97b4c3e3b9
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
735718207e92ebb4
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no