Pair of Maya Disk Ornaments

Private Collection, Chicago, acquired between the 1940s and 1950s

Merrin Gallery, New York

Paul A. Cohen, Massachusetts, acquired from the above on March 29, 2003

Thence by descent to the present owners

mayavase.com, A Precolumbian Portfolio, K8341

FAMSI Research Materials, K8341

These disks are masterfully carved in thin-section and finely incised with mirror-images of two seated lords representing the Hero Twins in association with the Maize deity, identified by their gesture and accoutrements. A dimensionality is conveyed in the densely composed scene, with the loincloth sash draped over the crossed-legs and and the folded arms holding undulating maize vegetation. The cupped palms facing upward with out-turned fingers is a posture associated with rulers in Early Classic art, as seen in small stone figures and stele. Here the vegetation is suggestive of the vision serpent bar held in a similar posture by rulers asserting their divine authority. The figures wear headbands surmounted by a zoomorphic creature, identified by Justin Kerr as a centipede, a creature who appears in supernatural scenes on polychrome vessels (See mayavase.com, K1256). Attention is given to their facial features and their jewelry, including the bead necklace with U-shape pendant, and the ear ornaments with long projecting tubes. Each disk is drilled with a tiny perforation at the center top for attachment to a headdress, or at the center of an ear ornament. 

Made from the highly valued thorny oyster (Spondylus sp.), a material that was valued for its symbolic power as an armor to aquatic creatures, and for its suitability for carving finely detailed ornaments.

For a pair of shell disks with similar facing images, see Joanne Pillsbury, Timothy Potts, and Kim N. Richter, eds., Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas, Los Angeles, 2017, p. 223, cat. no. 148, for the examples in the collection of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (inv. nos. 11-6-20/C5619 and 11-6-20/C5620).