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A Fine Maya Jade Head Pendant, Late Classic, ca. A.D. 550-950
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
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Description
of jewel-like color and form with a youthful face of the maize god style, wearing a zoomorphic headdress and earrings, with short bib-like neck; drilled at the corners.
Literature
Gérald Berjonneau, Jean-Louis Sonnery and Emile Deletaille, Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica, 1985, pl. 389
Catalogue Note
The life-giving green jade, known as chalchihuitl by the Aztecs, was the most prized stone of ancient Mesoamerica. The 16th chronicler Sahagun mentions the ancient's belief in its therapeutic value, and the five different names of the grades of various stones. The most important ornaments of the Maya elite can not be more aptly rendered than in this hardest of stones; for similar pendants from the Cenote of Chichen Itza, see Proskouriakoff (1974:144, pl. 61).