A window to the past

The maya people have a long tradition of creating figures, ceramics, and we are fortunate that many have been preserved in excellent condition until our days. These figurines we open a window to the past to understand fashion, artifacts, and even ideals of beauty.
The fantastic figure pottery that you see in our publication comes from somewhere in the north of the maya area (very probably Campeche or Yucatan) and shows us a full-body portrait of a warrior. This warrior highlighted particularly by his long hair, who wears proudly on his head and a beautiful work of scarification facial on her forehead.
In his left hand he holds a shield rectangular. It is known that this type of shields were folding, and for your details, we can assume that he was covered with feathers. In his right hand he probably had a spear, now lost in time.
We are extremely happy that these portraits have come down to our days. In some parts of the maya area is used to bury people with this type of figurine and it has been proposed that can be portraits of real people that were deposited either as a companion, or as portraits of the deceased person.
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© Image taken from the website of the Art Institute of Chicago, where the piece is currently located. The piece was sacked in a time and place unknown and it was taken to the museum in 1963, apparently from a private collection.