Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T16:06:38.963Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Copper Ornament and a Stone Mask from Middle America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

J. Eric S. Thompson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A small mask cast in copper with the features of a Maya merchant god supplies the first incontrovertible evidence that the Maya cast copper. As it has been in the British Museum for nearly a century, its authenticity cannot be doubted. One detail makes it virtually certain that the piece was cast in the lowlands. A large stone mask, collected in Mexico over 50 years ago, can be assigned with some confidence (despite previous doubts as to its authenticity) to southern Veracruz. It reveals attenuated Olmec influence and also has attributes of a merchant god.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , January 1965 , pp. 343 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1965

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Braunholtz, H. J. 1941-50 The Raphael Bequest, III. Ancient Stone Mask from Mexico. British Museum Quarterly, Vol. 15, pp. 106–07. London.Google Scholar
Lothrop, S. K. 1952 Metals from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 10, No. 2. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Root, W. C. 1953 Report on Some Metal Objects from Zaculeu. In The Ruins of Zaculeu, Guatemala, by Woodbury, Richard B. and Trik, Aubrey S., Vol. 1, pp. 266–8. Richmond.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. E. S. 1964 Merchant Gods of Middle Ametica. In Homenaje al Ingeniero Roberto J. Weitlaner (in press). Mexico.Google Scholar