The Uses of Decoration in Lowland Mexican Artifacts Spencer Gill ANT 3200 07/04/12 For the assignment, I have

elected to study four artifacts from Mesoamerican cultures, selecting them as examples of jewelry or decorative objects. I selected three artifacts from Mayan cultures, one of which could be dated to the early Classical period (300-600 CE) and two of which to the later Classical period (600-900 CE). I selected the fourth artifact from the Vera Cruz culture, though it could not be dated any more specifically than within the range of Classical Mayan civilization (250-950 CE). While only two of these artifacts are what we would consider to be purely decorative objects (that is, without any other material use than to look beautiful), the questions of how and why a society decorates its functional objects are also important to interpreting and/or reconstructing a societys approach to aesthetics in general. My central contention, then, is that Lowland Mexican cultures used aesthetic decorations for a range of purposes. The first artifact I studied was a Mayan tripod bowl (Fig. 1), dated to between 600 and 900 CE. The bowl is roughly a foot in diameter and less than an inch deep. It is made of glazed ceramic, and is colored in pale orange, red, and black. The inside of the bowl has a section missing near the center, and the inside has an image illustrating a scene from the Popol Vuh glazed on. As a tripod bowl, three short legs on the underside allow it to remain on uneven surfaces without tipping. This is one of the two functional items examined. The tripod bowl is probably not a ritual or ceremonial piece- apart from the interior design, it is entirely unadorned, being purely functional on the outside. Its size and shallow depth suggest that

people ate the greater part or totality of their meals from the bowl, assuming that it was a working piece and not, for example, a showpiece funerary vessel. In either case, the owner of the dish was almost certainly part of the urban middle class or upper class, for purchasing funerary ware is typically the domain of the wealthy who can afford such tomb burials, and using ornate dishes in day-to-day life is typically the domain of the wealthy or well-off as well. The decorations thus probably serve the purpose of reinforcing social hierarchy in several ways. First, they show that the owner is wealthy enough to afford such a high-quality dish. Secondly, they show that the owner has the good taste to pick a beautiful bowl to buy. Thirdly, they showcase the erudition and piety of the owner in the choice of subject matter. Fourthly, in the case of funerary ware, they show that the owner is well-off enough to receive a high-class inhumation, while in the case of regular-use dishes, they show that the owner is not only wealthy enough to buy, but also to use and thus risk breakage and wear of the dish. In addition, such a dish also can serve the purpose of regularly reminding the user of the mythological events enshrined on the bowls inner surface, and providing a sense of aesthetic pleasure. Quite a lot for a little bowl. The second artifact examined was a palma (Fig. 2) from the Vera Cruz culture, dated to between 250 and 900 CE. The palma is made of stone, although I was unable to determine from visual inspection which mineral. It is perhaps a foot and a half to two feet in height, with about six inches of width and roughly three or four of depth. It is carved into a shape roughly describable as a tombstone that has been squeezed from the bottom to the middle. The front has been carved to show a masked man in a headdress and loincloth standing atop a little ledge, with the background having symmetrical vines rising up along the rest of the length. The figure is about six to eight inches high, and has his hands on his hips. According to the museum display, the palma is the name of a protective chestpiece used in the ballgame shared among pre-Columbian Mexican cultures. Firstly, we can say that the palma on display is

clearly a model of the actual chestpiece, as it is not sized for an adult man, the stone would be poorly weighted for carrying on the chest, and the stone composition would provide little protection and indeed actually be counterproductive in many ways. So this is clearly not a functional piece. In fact, it is a miniature, if we extend that term to include all undersized models. The object almost certainly serves a mixture of purposes, then. The ballgame served an important religious purpose among those cultures whose knowledge has been recorded, and so it is likely that the decorations on the actual chestpiece served a ritual purpose- the figure is probably a guardian deity charged with protecting the player, or perhaps one of the players from the origin myth of the ballgame peculiar to the Vera Cruz culture. But this palma, being a model, likely serves the purpose of pedagogy about this ritual use. Young nobles may have been taught about the ballgame with the stone undersized replica as a visual aid for the teacher. Alternately, the palma may have instead been placed in a temple or other public area to provide a constant reminder of the religious ceremonies of the ballgame. The third of the artifacts to be studied were a set of two ear decorations and a pendant (Fig. 3). They are Mayan in origin, and have been dated to the period between 600 and 900 CE. They are made of carved and polished jade. The ear decorations are unadorned, irregular rings about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, roughly an eighth of an inch in thickness, and a quarter of an inch in depth. The pendant is roughly an inch by an inch and a half by a tenth of an inch in size. One face is carved to show a human face, its eyes closed, wearing a headdress, with an earring dangling from each ear. This face is slightly concaved. The other face is presumably blank. There is a shadowed section at the top of the piece which may indicate a carved hole through the pendant. All the pieces of jewelry are made of a jade that has large white/cream streaks running throughout.

Jewelry is perhaps the category of artifact furthest from functionality, and this seems no different. The most obvious bit of interpretation is that these pieces are incomplete. Some wire, clasp, or string is missing to allow the earrings to be worn, and if the pendant does not have a drilled hole through it, not only is it missing its string/chain, but a setting as well. This is almost purely tautological, of course. The earrings shown being worn by the figure on the pendant are nearly identical to those with the pendant, which suggests that there is more to these pieces than simply being pretty. Without further context as to the identity of the face on the necklace, we can only speculate. Were these a part of the accoutrements of a priest, to show identification with a particular god? Were these instead an early identification badge, showing allegiance to a particular faction or family? Admittedly, some speculation is more reasonable than others, but overall the pendant having the earrings on it suggests that whatever context tells us, identification of the wearer with someone or thing else was an important part of why this jewelry was worn. Finally among the artifacts observed, we have an effigy jar (Fig. 4). This jar is from the Mayan culture and dates to between 300 and 600 CE. The jar is roughly eight inches tall, and its base would roughly fit into a three inch by three inch square. It is made of ceramics, with the same base clay and glazing-painting style as the tripod bowl. The jar is molded in the shape of a monkey halfway between kneeling and the runners starting position. Its arms are missing roughly beyond the elbow. The jar is opened by twisting the body at the waist, and the lower half of the body serves as storage within the jar. Again starting from basic interpretation, the presence of bits and pieces of black on the body suggest either that the jar (and thus the tripod bowl) are painted, or else the jar has been so worn as to lose all of the glaze, though the red is (mostly) intact. Its most likely that these pieces of pottery were painted. This also tells us that the light orange of the denuded jar is the natural color of the clay. The jar must have been striking in its day, as it would have been solid black and red except for the whites of the

eyes. Next, the monkey is clothed- it wears a red loincloth extending down from the fingerhold, and what looks to either be a necklace or part of a larger article of clothing with the loincloth on its upper body. It is also wearing earrings. This suggests that this monkey is not supposed to be an ordinary primate from the Mexican rainforests, and is instead some sort of mythological figure. The jar is capable of holding so little that a religious function seems almost inevitable. But there are many, many purposes that a container with a mythical figure on it can serve in a religious context. From the similar material and painting style with the tripod bowl, it seems quite likely that both were found in similar contexts, and the effigy jar probably served the purpose of symbolizing a household protector deity, and providing a means to give offerings to the deity. Alternately, the effigy jar served the purpose of symbolizing a malefic or mischievous deity to be propitiated through offerings. Without further context as to the figure on the jar or at the very least the cultural context of monkeys in Mayan society of the time period, there is little to determine which. Is the stance of the jar that of a wrathful protector, or of a sullen thief? It is beyond my powers to conclude either way. Finally, it is noteworthy that the tricolor style of pottery was used in both early Classical and late Classical Mayan society. But now that interpretation has concluded for these objects in isolation, together they tell us more. Of these four objects, classified together as decorative, we can further subdivide them into functional and non-functional, ceremonial and non-ceremonial, and so on ad nauseam. And while they all share the status of decorative, the decorations on each serve different functions. The bowl appears to serve the function of reinforcing social hierarchies, the palma of educating on the Mesoamerican ballgame, the pendant and earrings of identifying oneself with something or someone greater, and the jar of providing a direct symbolic link with a deity. While the subject matters of the decorations of all of these are probably religious, we must distinguish this from their purpose or function within society. The

cultures of lowland Mexico did not, from the evidence, restrict ornamentation to a single purpose or a handful of purposes, but instead allowed its free use for a multitude of purposes, from the preening of the wealthy to the edification of the viewer.

Fig. 1 Tripod Bowl

Fig. 2 Palma

Fig. 3 Earrings and Pendant

Fig. 4 Effigy Jar