Maya Jaguar Plate

A plate in beige clay decorated in orange, red an black paint. Centrally the image of an anthropomorphic jaguar, standing on their back legs and wearing a red shawl. The jaguar had an important place in pre-Columbian  culture and belief. Kings and priests would wear the hide of the jaguar to unite with the animal's spirit and powers, and thus to become jaguar themselves. This plate likely shows such transfiguration during a ceremony. In the middle of the plate is a 'killing hole'. The Maya are assumed to have believed objects contained a spirit. When a plate would be ritually buried, it had to be killed first. 

35cm Diameter.
Maya culture, South-Mexico/Guatemala
300-800 A.D., Maya classical period. 

The plate has two drilled holes from an old restoration. The crack it protected is now stabilised.