Classic Maya Polychrome Vase with Anthropomorphic Coyote
from Campeche, Mexico
Virtual Exhibit Video
The Life-Force of Mayan Ceramics
The Maya civilization is a complex society with a host of ritual and aesthetic practices placed at the forefront of all mortal and supernatural relationships. This paper seeks to unpack these complexities and provide a glimpse into the proximate relationship of ceramics and spirituality. Through the research I have compiled on two Maya vessels held at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA)–– one bearing the iconography of an anthropomorphic coyote, and the other petals of a flower–– I will place the artistic aesthetics of these pieces in conversation with ritual practice. Ceramics provided a gateway into the realm of the mortal and supernatural, and I hope that, by and large, one is able to understand the awe-inducing influence these ritual practices leveraged on Maya society through these ceramics of the Classic period.