Ancient Maya art facts for kids

The ancient Maya art is the amazing artwork created by the Mayan civilization. This culture lived in many small kingdoms across what is now Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. Different art styles grew in different areas, often changing as kingdoms changed their borders.

The Maya civilization started to really take shape around 750 BC to 100 BC. This was when their first cities and big buildings began to appear, and their special writing system, called hieroglyphs, was invented. The most beautiful Maya art was made during the Classic Period, which lasted for about 700 years (from 250 to 950 CE).

Early Maya art (250-550 CE) was often very structured and formal. Later, during the Late Classic period (550-950 CE), it became more expressive and lively. The Maya also learned from other cultures in Mesoamerica. For example, you can see influences from the Olmec people in early Maya art, and later from Teotihuacán and the Toltec people.

After the Classic Maya kingdoms declined around 950 CE, Maya art continued in the Yucatan peninsula until the 1500s. The arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century sadly ended much of this royal art tradition. However, some traditional art forms, like weaving and house designs, continued to be passed down.

Exploring Maya Art History

People started seriously studying Maya art in the 1800s and early 1900s. Explorers like John Lloyd Stephens and artists like Frederick Catherwood made detailed drawings and photos of Maya ruins. This helped share Maya art with the world for the first time.

Studying a ruin at Izamal, an engraving by Catherwood.

Later, in 1913, Herbert Spinden wrote an important book called 'A Study of Maya Art'. This book looked at common themes in Maya art, like the serpent and dragon designs. It also studied how Maya artists decorated temples and other buildings. Another expert, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, later improved how we understand the timeline of Classic Maya sculpture.

In the 1970s, understanding Maya art really took off. Experts like Linda Schele and Michael D. Coe began to connect the art with the history of Maya kings and their myths. They studied many newly discovered sculptures and pottery pieces. This helped us learn a lot about the spiritual world of the ancient Maya.

Today, new studies are looking at things like how Maya pottery was made and how hieroglyphs themselves are a form of art. Many books are also being written about the amazing art from specific Maya kingdoms.

Amazing Maya Architecture

Copan, a 'Reviewing Stand' with monkey musicians.

Labna Palace, showing a vaulted passage.

Maya towns and cities, especially the main centers where kings and nobles lived, were built with huge, flat stucco floors in plazas. These plazas were often on different levels, connected by wide, sometimes steep, stairs. Tall temple pyramids stood above them. Over time, new layers were added to buildings, making them even bigger. The Maya also built smart water systems, including channels and reservoirs.

Outside the main ceremonial centers, there were homes for lesser nobles and smaller temples. Common people lived in areas around these. Long, raised roads called sacbeob connected the main centers to other living areas. The Maya seemed to care a lot about how their buildings looked, making them beautiful and grand. They also carefully planned the direction their buildings faced.

Here are some types of stone buildings the Maya created:

• Ceremonial platforms: These were usually less than 4 meters (13 feet) tall.
• Courtyards and palaces: Homes for the royal families and nobles.
• Other residential buildings: Like a possible writers' house in Copan.
• Temples and temple pyramids: Pyramids often held burials or burial chambers inside. Sanctuaries (holy rooms) were built on top. The many burial temples at Tikal's North Acropolis are a great example.
• Ball courts: Where the Maya played their famous ball game.
• Sweat baths: Found at places like Piedras Negras and Xultun, some with stucco decorations.

Some special groups of buildings include:

• Triadic pyramids: A large building with two smaller buildings facing inward, all on one big platform.
• E-groups: A square platform with a low pyramid on the west side and a long building (or three small ones) on the east side.
• Twin pyramid complexes: Two identical four-stepped pyramids on opposite sides of a small plaza. They also had a building with nine doorways and a small area with a carved stone slab (stela) and altar. These celebrated the king's special ceremonies.

In palaces and temple rooms, the Maya often used a special type of arch called a corbelled vault. This arch was made by stacking stones inward until they met at the top. It needed very thick walls to support the high ceiling. Some temples used many of these arches to create inner sanctuaries, like the Temple of the Cross at Palenque.

In the northern Maya area (Campeche and Yucatan), the architecture had its own unique style. Buildings in the Puuc, Chenes, and Rio Bec styles were known for their stone decorations. They often used geometric patterns, stacked images of rain god snouts, and doorways shaped like serpent mouths. The most important Puuc site is Uxmal.

Chichen Itza, a powerful city in Yucatan, has buildings in both Classic Maya styles and later styles influenced by Mexican cultures. These later buildings include radial pyramids (with stairs on all four sides), halls with many columns, and round temples.

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  Chichen Itza, a traditional Maya house.

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  Palenque, Temple of the Inscriptions, Late Classic.

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  Tikal Temple II, Late Classic.

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  Multistoried palace, Sayil, Yucatan, Late Classic.

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  Uxmal, Nunnery building, with a frieze showing stacked rain god snouts at the corner, Late Classic.

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  Ball court, Copan, Late Classic.

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  Chichen Itza, the radial pyramid El Castillo, Postclassic.

Impressive Stone Sculpture

Cancuén, panel 3, showing a seated king with two people below him. Second half of the 8th century.

Copan stela A, a cast made by Maudslay.

Before the Classic Period, the Izapa style was important. Many carved stone slabs (stelas) and altars were found there. These often showed myths and stories, some possibly related to the Twin myth from the Popol Vuh.

During the Classic Period, the Maya created many types of stone sculptures, usually from limestone:

• Stelas: These are tall, upright stone slabs covered with carvings and writing. They often stood next to round altars. Most stelas show the city's rulers, sometimes dressed as gods. The faces of the rulers look realistic, but usually don't show individual features, except for some at Piedras Negras. The most famous stelas are from Copán and nearby Quirigua. These are known for their amazing detail. Quirigua's stelas are also incredibly tall, with one reaching over 7 meters (23 feet) above ground!
• Lintels: These are carved stone beams placed above doorways. Yaxchilan is famous for its many lintels with deep carvings. Some show meetings with ancestors or local gods.
• Panels and tablets: These were set into walls and platforms. Palenque has many beautiful examples, like the large tablets in the temples of the Cross Group. King Pakal's carved sarcophagus lid, which is unique, could also be included here.
• Relief columns: These columns stood next to doorways in buildings in the Puuc region. They were decorated like stelas.
• Altars: These were round or rectangular stones, sometimes resting on legs. They could have carvings on top, sometimes just a single day sign from the Maya calendar.
• Zoomorphs: Large boulders carved to look like supernatural creatures, covered with complex designs. These are mostly found at Quirigua.
• Ball court markers: Round carvings placed in the center of ball court floors. They usually show kings playing the ball game.
• Monumental stairs: The most famous is the giant hieroglyphic stairway at Copan. The carved stone blocks on these stairs form long texts. Stairs could also show various scenes, especially the ball game.
• Thrones and benches: Thrones had a wide, square seat and a back that sometimes looked like a cave wall. Benches were longer, built into the architecture, and had carvings on the front. Examples from Palenque and Copan show gods supporting them.
• Stone sculpture in the round: This means sculptures that are fully three-dimensional, not just carvings on a flat surface. Copan and Toniná are known for these. Examples include statues of scribes, captive figures, and large sculptures like jaguars and monkey musicians that were part of buildings.

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  Yaxchilan lintel 24, showing a king holding a torch and a queen letting blood, 723–726 CE (British Museum).

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  Yaxchilan lintel, a war chief presenting captives to the king, 783 CE (Kimbell Art Museum).

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  Relief column, Late Classic (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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  Piedras Negras throne 1, with heads restored, Late Classic (Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala).

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  Back of a throne, Late Classic (Museo Amparo).

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  Tonina monument 151, a bound prisoner, Classic.

Rare Wood Carvings

A possible mirror bearer; 6th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

It is thought that wood carvings were very common in ancient Maya times. However, only a few examples have survived because wood decays easily in the humid climate. Many 16th-century wood carvings were also destroyed by the Spanish.

The most important Classic Maya wood carvings are detailed lintels (beams above doorways). Most of these come from the main pyramid sanctuaries at Tikal, with one from nearby El Zotz. These Tikal wood reliefs, from the 8th century, show a king on his throne with a large protector figure behind him. This figure might be a "war serpent," a jaguar, or a person dressed as the jaguar god of fire. Other lintels show a king in a jaguar costume or a victorious king dressed as a god, standing on a special platform.

A rare everyday object made of wood is a tiny lidded box from Tortuguero with hieroglyphic writing all around it. A free-standing wooden sculpture from the 6th century shows a seated man, possibly holding a mirror.

Stunning Stucco Modeling

Stucco mask panels, Early Classic, Kohunlich.

A stucco portrait of K'inich Janaab Pakal I, 615–683 CE (National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico)).

Since ancient times, Maya buildings and floors were covered with modeled and painted stucco plaster. This plaster often featured large mask panels with the high-relief heads of gods (like the sun, rain, and earth gods). These were often attached to the sloped walls of temple platforms next to stairs, as seen at Kohunlich.

Stucco modeling could also cover an entire building. For example, Temple 16 at Copán, in its 6th-century form (called 'Rosalila'), was dedicated to the first king, Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ. This early temple still has its plastered and painted walls. The stucco friezes (decorative bands), walls, pillars, and roof combs from the Classic period show many different and sometimes complex designs.

Artists used various ways to decorate stucco surfaces. Sometimes, they repeated similar designs. The Early Classic walls of the 'Temple of the Night Sun' in El Zotz have a series of slightly different god mask panels. A frieze from a palace in Balamku showed four rulers sitting above the open mouths of four different animals, linked to symbolic mountains. Other friezes might focus on a single ruler on a symbolic mountain, like one from Holmul with feathered serpents coming from under the ruler's seat.

Often, a frieze was divided into sections. For example, Late Preclassic friezes at El Mirador show aquatic birds in the spaces of a wavy serpent's body. A Classic palace frieze in Acanceh has panels with different animal figures. A wall in Tonina has diamond-shaped areas that look like a scaffold, showing continuous stories, possibly about human sacrifice.

Plastered roof combs (the tall structures on top of temples) often showed large images of rulers. These rulers might be seated on a symbolic mountain, or placed within a cosmic scene, like on Palenque's Temple of the Sun. Other examples of Classic stucco work include the pillars of the Palenque Palace, decorated with lords and ladies in ceremonial clothes. The 'baroque' style stucco entrance at Ek' Balam is covered with realistic human figures.

Unique in Mesoamerica, Classic Period stucco modeling includes realistic portraits that are as good as ancient Roman portraits. The stucco heads of Palenque rulers and Tonina dignitaries are amazing examples. These portraits were sometimes part of life-size stucco figures that decorated temple tops. Stucco glyphs (writing) were also created as part of stucco texts.

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  Balamku, part of a frieze, showing a toad on a mountain icon with a king coming out, Classic.

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  Palenque Palace, House D, a detail of stucco relief showing water lilies, a long-nosed god head, and legs of a seated figure, Classic.

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  Palenque Templo Olvidado, calendrical glyphs detached from a stucco text on a pillar, Classic.

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  Hormiguero, a stucco head ("Maya Akhenaten"), Late Classic (Museo arqueológico Fuerte de S. Miguel, Campeche).

Vibrant Mural Painting

Bonampak mural, room 1, east wall: Musicians.

Because of the humid climate in Central America, not many Maya paintings have survived completely. However, important pieces have been found in almost all major royal palaces, especially in hidden rooms under later buildings.

Mural paintings can show repeating patterns, like the flower symbols on the walls of House E of the Palenque Palace. They can also show scenes from daily life, as seen in Calakmul and Chilonche. Some murals show ritual scenes with gods, like the Post-Classic temple murals on the east coast of Yucatán and Belize (Tancah, Tulum, Santa Rita). These later murals show a strong influence from the 'Mixteca-Puebla style' found across Mesoamerica.

Murals can also tell a story, often with hieroglyphic captions. The colorful Bonampak murals, from 790 AD, cover the walls and ceilings of three rooms. They show amazing scenes of nobles, battles, and sacrifices, as well as a group of ritual dancers with musicians. At San Bartolo, murals from 100 BCE tell myths about the Maya maize god and the hero twin Hunahpu. They also show a double crowning ceremony. Even though these murals are centuries older than the Classic Period, their style is already very developed, with soft and muted colors.

Outside the Maya area, in Cacaxtla (central Mexico), murals painted in a Classic Maya style have been found. These often use strong colors and show a fierce battle scene over 20 meters long. They also depict Maya lords standing on serpents and a field of maize and cacao visited by the Maya merchant god.

Wall painting also appears on the capstones (top stones) of vaults, in tombs (like Río Azul), and in caves (like Naj Tunich). These are usually black on a white surface, sometimes with red paint added. Capstones in Yucatan often show the enthroned lightning deity.

A bright turquoise blue color, called 'Maya blue', has survived for centuries because of its special chemical makeup. This color is found in Bonampak, Cacaxtla, and even in some Colonial convents. Maya Blue was used until the 16th century, when the technique was lost.

Maya Writing and Books

Madrid Codex.

The Maya writing system has about 1000 different characters, or hieroglyphs ('glyphs'). Like many ancient writing systems, it mixes signs that represent sounds (syllables) and signs that represent whole words (logograms). This writing was used from the 3rd century BCE until shortly after the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. Today, we can read many of the characters, but we don't always understand their full meaning or how they fit together in a text.

Maya books were folded like screens and made from bark paper or leather leaves. They had a smooth stucco layer for writing. These books were protected by jaguar skin covers and possibly wooden boards. Since many people likely needed a book for divination, there must have been a huge number of them.

Today, only three Maya hieroglyphic books from the Post-Classic period still exist: the Dresden Codex, Paris Codex, and Madrid Codex. A fourth book, the Grolier Codex, is more Maya-Toltec and doesn't have hieroglyphic texts. It's also very fragmented and poorly made, so its authenticity has been questioned for a long time. These books are mostly about divination and religious rituals. They contain calendars, astrology tables, and ritual instructions. The Paris Codex also includes prophecies. Great care was taken to balance the text with beautiful, partly colored illustrations.

Besides the formal glyphs found in books, there was also a flowing, cursive script. This was used in wall paintings and on pottery. It was even copied in stone on panels from Palenque. Often, written captions were placed in square "boxes" within the artwork. Some wall paintings are entirely made of text, or, more rarely, contain astrological calculations. These texts, often written on white stucco with great care, look like enlarged pages from books.

Hieroglyphs were everywhere and written on almost any surface, even the human body. The glyphs themselves are very detailed, and the word-signs (logograms) can look surprisingly realistic. From an art point of view, they are also art motifs, and vice versa. Sculptors at Copan and Quirigua even turned hieroglyphic elements and calendar signs into lively, dramatic miniature scenes.

Beautiful Ceramics and 'Codex Style' Pottery

Jaina, a nobleman.

Unlike everyday pottery found in large amounts at archaeological sites, most decorated Maya pottery was special. It was used by Maya nobles as "social currency" – gifts exchanged during important events. These precious pieces were also kept as family treasures and buried with nobles in their graves. The tradition of gift-giving feasts and ceremonial visits among the elite helped push Maya artists to create such high-quality work during the Classic period.

Maya pottery was made without a potter's wheel. It was delicately painted, carved, or incised. During the Early Classic period, some pottery was made using a fresco technique, where paint was applied to a wet clay surface. These valuable objects were made in many workshops across the Maya kingdoms. Some famous styles include the 'Chama-style', 'Holmul-style', 'Ik-style', and 'Chochola-style' for carved pottery.

Vase decorations show a wide variety of scenes. These include palace life, royal rituals, mythology, divinatory glyphs, and even texts about royal families. This pottery plays a huge role in helping us understand Classic Maya life and beliefs. Ceramic scenes and texts painted in black and red on a white background, which look like pages from the lost folding books, are called 'Codex Style'.

Sculptural ceramic art includes the lids of Early Classic bowls, which often have human or animal figures on top. Some of these bowls, polished black, are among the most beautiful Maya artworks ever made.

Ceramic sculptures also include incense burners and burial urns. The Classic burners from Palenque are well-known. They have the modeled face of a god or king attached to a long, hollow tube. The jaguar god of terrestrial fire is often shown on large Classic burial urns from Guatemala. The elaborate Post-Classic incense burners, especially from Mayapan, were made using molds and show standing gods (or priests dressed as gods) often carrying offerings.

Finally, small figurines, often made from molds, are a minor but very informative art form. They are incredibly lively and realistic. Besides gods, animal-people, rulers, and dwarfs, they show many other characters and scenes from daily life. Some of these figurines are ocarinas (musical instruments) and might have been used in rituals. The most impressive examples come from Jaina Island.

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  Codex-style vase with a mythological scene, 7th–8th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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  Vessel with a throne scene, Chamá style, late 7th–8th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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  Relief vase with the head of an aquatic serpent, Chocholá style, Yucatan, Late Classic (Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin).

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  Lidded basal flange bowl, El Peru, Guatemala, Early Classic (Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología de Guatemala).

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  Tripod bowl with a heron lid, Early Classic (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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  Lower part of an incense burner, Palenque style, Late Classic (Walters Art Museum).

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  Urn with a jaguar deity lid, Late Classic (Walters Art Museum).

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  Costumed figure, 7th–8th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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  Young nobleman as a flower, Jaina style, 8th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Precious Stones and Other Carved Materials

A marble belt with jade pendants, from the tomb of King Pakal, Palenque.

A jade plaque from Nebaj, showing a king flanked by 'Pax trees' with maize leaves.

It's amazing that the Maya, who didn't have metal tools, could create so many objects from a very hard stone called jade (jadeite). They made all sorts of royal clothing items, like belt plaques (flat, axe-shaped ornaments), ear spools, pendants, and even masks. Some belt plaques were carved with a stela-like image of the king, like the Early-Classic 'Leyden Plate'.

The most famous jade mask is probably the death mask of the Palenque king Pakal. It's covered with irregularly shaped jade pieces and has eyes made from mother-of-pearl and obsidian. Another death mask, belonging to a Palenque queen, is made of malachite pieces. Some cylindrical vases from Tikal even have an outer layer of square jade discs. Many stone carvings also had jade inlays.

Other materials that were carved and engraved include flint, chert, shell, and bone. These are often found in special offerings or burials. The 'eccentric flints' are ceremonial objects of unknown use. In their most complex forms, they are long and have several heads on one or both sides, sometimes of the lightning deity or the Tonsured Maize God.

Shells were shaped into disks and other decorations showing human heads (possibly ancestors) and gods. Conch trumpets were also decorated in a similar way. Human and animal bones were decorated with carved symbols and scenes. A collection of small, carved bones from an 8th-century royal burial under Tikal Temple I has some of the most delicate Maya engravings. These include scenes with the Tonsured Maize God in a canoe.

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  Flower-shaped jadeite earflares, Late Classic (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

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  Jadeite deity face pendant, 7th–8th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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  Jadeite rain deity with arms in royal posture, Early Classic (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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  Jade belt plaque with a ruler, Early Classic (Kimbell Art Museum).

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  Funerary mask of a Palenque queen covered with pieces of malachite, 7th century (site museum).

Applied Arts and Body Decoration

Textiles (fabrics) from the Classic period, made of cotton, have not survived. However, Maya art shows us what they looked like and how they were used. These included delicate fabrics for wrapping, curtains, and canopies in palaces, as well as clothing. One dyeing technique they might have used was ikat.

Everyday clothing depended on a person's social status. Noblewomen usually wore long dresses. Noblemen wore girdles and loincloths, leaving their legs and upper body mostly bare, unless they wore jackets or mantles. Both men and women could wear turbans. Costumes worn for ceremonies and festivals were very expressive and elaborate. Animal headdresses were common. The most complex costume was the king's formal clothing, shown on royal stelae, with many elements full of symbolic meaning.

Wickerwork (items made from woven plant fibers) must have been very common, even though we only see it in some art. The well-known pop (mat) design shows how important it was.

Body decorations often included painted patterns on the face and body. Some decorations were permanent and showed a person's status and age. These included shaping the skull, filing and decorating teeth, and tattooing the face.

Maya Art in Museums

The Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, in Guatemala City.

Many museums around the world have Maya artifacts in their collections. The Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies lists over 250 museums with Maya art.

In Mexico City, the Museo Nacional de Antropología has a very large collection of Maya artifacts. Several regional museums in Mexico also have important collections. These include Museo Amparo in Puebla, the Museo de las Estelas "Román Piña Chan" in Campeche, the Museo Regional de Yucatán "Palacio Cantón" in Mérida, and the Museo Regional de Antropología "Carlos Pellicer Camera" in Villahermosa, Tabasco.

In Guatemala, the most important museum collections are at the Museo Popol Vuh and the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, both in Guatemala City. Smaller pieces are on display at the "El Príncipe Maya" museum in Cobán. In Belize, Maya artifacts can be found at the Museum of Belize and the Bliss Institute. In Honduras, you can see them at the Copan Sculpture Museum and the Galería Nacional de Arte in Tegucigalpa.

In the United States, almost every major art museum has a collection of Maya artifacts, often including large stone monuments. Important collections on the East Coast include those at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Dumbarton Oaks collection, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. On the West Coast, the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art have large collections of painted Maya ceramics. Other notable collections are at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio and the Art Institute of Chicago.

In Europe, the British Museum in London displays famous Yaxchilan lintels. The Museum der Kulturen in Basel, Switzerland, has several wooden lintels from Tikal. The Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin has a wide selection of Maya artifacts, including an engraved Early-Classic vase showing a king in state. The Museo de América in Madrid hosts the Madrid Codex and many artifacts from Palenque. Other notable European museums include the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden, Netherlands, which has the La Pasadita lintel 2 and the Leyden Plate. Also, the Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire in Brussels and the Rietberg Museum in Zürich, Switzerland, have important collections.

See Also

In Spanish: Arte maya para niños