Jade Masks of the Maya

The Pinacothèque in Paris is currently presenting Les Masques de Jade Mayas, an exhibition highlighting an astounding and highly important collection of jade mosaic masks which represent one of the most momentous archaeological discoveries in Mexico during the last decade. These exceptional masks, entirely restored by the most eminent specialists in Maya archaeology, represent the faces of deities. Created for the elite rulers of Maya cities, their primary purpose was to guarantee them their bearers eternal life after death.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of Pinacothèque

Children of the Plumed Serpent at LACMA

Recent scholarship demonstrates that a confederacy of city-states in southern Mexico, largely dominated by Nahua, Mixtec, and Zapotec nobility, successfully resisted both Aztec and Spanish subjugation. Children of the Plumed Serpent: The Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico explores the extraordinary wonders in fresco, codices, polychrome ceramics, gold, turquoise, shell, textiles, and other precious materials that were produced by these confederacies between AD 1200 and 1500, as their influence spread throughout Mesoamerica by means of vast networks of trade and exchange. A ruling class of nobles, or caciques, believing that Quetzalcoatl, the human incarnation of the Plumed Serpent, had founded their royal lineages, called themselves the "Children of the Plumed Serpent"; they resurrected themselves and continued to affect cultural development in Mesoamerica during a dramatic period of social transformation.  On view April 1–July 1, 2012.

View the LACMA website.

Pendant Depicting a Ruler in Ritual Regalia  -  Culture unknown  -  AD 1200–1521

Detail of the Codex Selden  -  Mexico  -  AD 1556–60

 

Images and text courtesy of Los Angeles County Museum of Art