Stela
Maya (Mexico (Campeche or Quintana Roo) or Guatemala)
c. 702
- Medium
- Limestone
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 162.6 × 68.6 × 30.5 cm (64 × 27 × 12 in.)
- Culture
- Campeche state
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Wirt D. Walker Endowment Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Maya royals were portrayed on stone monuments like this one, which they erected in public spaces within their cities. These sculptures marked major dynastic events including enthronements, marriages, military triumphs, and deaths. Although the elaborately dressed figure on this stela is currently unidentified, the hieroglyphic text on the left side of the stone marks the date: January 20, 702. We do not yet know what event was being recorded, but this date was likely significant for Maya peoples because it was the end of a ten-year period, or Lahuntun, similar to a decade.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
