Maya Stucco Head of an Aged Being from the Casa del Coral in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2022

Title: Head of aged being

Date: 7th–9th century

Geography: Guatemala, El Mirador

Culture: Maya

Medium: Stucco

Dimensions: H. 11 7/16 × W. 6 11/16 × D. 6 5/16 in. (29 × 17 × 16 cm)

Classification: Stucco-Sculpture

Credit Line: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala City, Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes de Guatemala

Accession Number: SL.2.2022.8.5

Artists displayed great imagination in the creation of grotesque creatures. This finely modeled head with luxurious blue paint range from the nearly human to the decidedly fantastic. Their wrinkled faces and toothless mouths evoke old age, in a departure from standard, dignified representations of respected elders and aged gods. Surely perceived as strange, perhaps even amusing, these heads belong to the realm of the wondrous and sometimes fearsome supernatural beings that populated Maya views of the world.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/820303?pkgids=804