Item Size:  19.5" High     Type:  Wall Plaque

Material:  Casting Stone, with Antique Finish & Color Detail

Original:  From Yaxchilán, now part of the state of Chiapas, Mexico, 755 C.E.

Current Location of Original:  British Museum, London

This relief is based on a limestone lintel, one of a series of three panels commissioned by Maya leader Bird Jaguar IV for a structure in the Maya city of Yaxchilán. The full lintel shows one of Bird Jaguar's wives during a bloodletting rite. The Vision Serpent, shown here in our piece, appears before her, springing from a bowl, which also contains strips of bark-paper. Bloodletting was a common practice in Maya life from the Late Preclassic period (400 B.C.E. - 250 C.E.) onwards, and an essential part of rulership and of all public rituals. The Maya élite drew blood from various parts of their bodies using lancets made of stingray spine, flint, bone or obsidian. These objects are often found in burials and other archaeological contexts. Within the Maya religion, the Vision Serpent symbolizes the passage of ancestral spirits and the gods of Xibalba (the Maya’s name for their underworld) into our everyday world. With massive bloodletting, the body goes into shock, and the chemical reaction in one’s body literally affects one’s perception. The serpent may thus be what they were given to believe they could see in the clouds of smoke rising from the burning sacrifice, possibly with cloud symbols flanking the Vision Serpent’s body. This sculpture depicts a version with a single head emerging from the serpent's mouth, and blood scrolls attached to its tail.