Maya Stone Hacha of a Serpent

Alphonse Jax, New York

European Private Collection, acquired from the above on February 5, 1978

Thence by descent

Denver, The Denver Art Museum, 1998 - 2017, (TL 18287.4)

One of three fine hachas in the collection (see lots 12 and 14) representing one of the important ceremonial objects of the ballgame. The hachas from the Southern highlands of the Maya region are typically slender in width and carved without a deep notch at the back.

The head of the animal here has jawlines terminating in symmetrical scrolls, and carved with a deep oval eye and gaping jaw; the body is tightly coiled up and over the head ending the powerful rattle of the snake. The lower edge of the sinuous body is carved with a segmented band.

The snake held continuous significance in Mesoamerican iconography, aptly revered for its ability to traverse above and below the ground, and the annual shedding of its skin as a form of rebirth. The snake is the fifth in the sequence of the twenty day or calendar signs for both the Aztecs and the Maya. The ‘plumed serpent’ deity Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs, was portrayed as the vision serpent for the Maya.

Cf. Edwin M. Shook and Elayne Marquis, Secrets in Stone: Yokes, Hachas and Palmas from Southern Mesoamerica, Philadelphia, 1996, p. 171, S1.