A Large Maya Lidded blackware vessel, Early Classic, ca. A.D. 250-450

of majestic proportion with high domed lid and rattle tetrapod legs, the vessel with slightly flaring walls and concave base, finely incised with two panels on the exterior with the emblem of the Underworld, the zoomorphic creature with scrolled pupil within squared eye and opposed undulating scrolls at each side, the fitted lid modeled with a slithering iguana slinking low across the surface of the watery realm, with tail curving right and the forebody and head looking left, with long flipper-like feet, raised spine, the Venus symbol of spiked crescents decorating each limb, and with elongated bisected eyes, two waterlily fronds cascading before his head, the finely incised undulating band across the top with details of scrolls and sprouting elements. 

Acquired in the early 1960's

Nicholas M. Hellmuth, Monsters and Men in Maya Art, Graz, 1987, fig. 168 drawing of lid, and fig. 177 drawing of the incised band on the lid.

This fine blackware vessel is an important Early Classic ceramic vividly depicting the iconography of the watery Underworld of Maya mythology. The tropical and swampy environment of the lowland Maya regions, was the literal foundation for the elaborate pantheon of deities and creation myths.  Hellmuth (1987:347) notes that within Early Classic art ''one cosmological locus was illustrated more than any other." The watery Underworld was a sacred place giving rise to spiritual power and cosmological order. Likewise, the amphibious creatures including members of the crocodile and iguana family, were respected for their ability to habitat both the upper and lower worlds, as were waterbirds who hunted in the air and water. These creatures, both the caiman or serpent, and the long-beaked bird, become keystones of Maya zoomorphic iconography as portrayed by the Celestial Monster, serpent monster scepter, and the Vucub Caquix Principal bird deity.

For examples of blackware lidded vessels with animal handles see (ibid.: figs. 165, 172); see also (ibid.: figs. 176-184) for the incised motifs depicting the surface of the Underworld.