Hieroglyphic Altar
Maya (Possibly Bonampak/Lacanha area, Mexico or Guatemala)
650–700
- Medium
- Limestone
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 21.6 × 37.5 × 41.9 cm (8 1/2 × 14 3/4 × 16 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Bonampak
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Baker
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This altar depicts the head and torso of an individual wearing an ornate headdress and a large, woven mat pectoral emblem of rulership. He appears within a four-lobed cartouche, suggesting that he is a deceased ancestor who lives in the Underworld. The hieroglyphs that surround the figure describe the commemoration of a monument or structure; the text carved around the sides of the monument celebrate a successor’s completion of six years of kingship.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
