Polychrome Vessel

Heritage description

About the object

The main scene on the vessel is located below the pseudoglyphs, within a band with a red background. The upper part is not delimited, but the lower part is marked by a horizontal brown line indicating the end of the scene. It is composed of seven figures: three anthropomorphic and four zoomorphic. “God L” can be seen interacting with a man seated in front of him. From the snout of an iguana with a jaguar ear emerges a rabbit or smaller reptile, also with a jaguar ear. There is then a seated figure looking upward toward what appears to be a portal formed by eyes of the dead, above which are a bird and an iguana. The upper band lies below a red line beside the lip, both on the interior and exterior. The lip has lost its original color, although it appears to have been the same reddish-orange color as the line still visible today. Below this line is the pseudoglyph band. It contains approximately 14 glyph blocks and a total of 23 individual glyphs, including one bar, possibly numerical. Below the central scene is a lower band delimited by two parallel dark-brown lines, both above, at the lower edge of the central scene, and below, next to the final red band bordering the base. Together, the brown lines form a band whose interior retains the cream-colored background of the vessel’s slip. Between these bands are several iconographic elements separated by vertical bands. Four types of elements can be observed: parallel rectangles, celestial elements, mat motifs, and eyes of the dead. Some of the vertical bands separating these elements are single, while others are double, with the center retaining the red background color of the scene. One of these bands is missing the red color in its center. Below this band is a red strip.