The Formative Period

Please click any thumbnail at right for a larger image!

Click any highlighted name to hear its pronunciation!

Potbelly Sculptures

The monolithic "potbelly" figures are prominent across the southern Maya region, ranging from Copan in Honduras to Kaminaljuyú and El Baúl in southern Guatemala to Izapa, on the western coast of Chiapas, Mexico. Dating from the late Formative period, the distribution of this style suggests that the Maya were actively communicating artistic styles across hundreds of miles. The fragment on the left is the remnant of a potbelly figure from Copan. The forehead bears a band with a small object above the brow. This sculpted head is the earliest fragment from Copan. The figure at right is a potbelly figure from Kaminaljuyú, Guatemala.

Copan Museum, National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology


Kaminaljuyú Bases

Although Maya civilization is best known for its monumental cities from the Classic period, its earliest cities preceded these by centuries. El Baúl stood toward the west coast of Guatemala; El Mirador and Uaxactun were founded in the Peten lowlands; and Kaminaljuyú emerged in the southern highlands of Guatemala. Kaminaljuyú was a late Formative site, dating from 300 BCE to 250 CE, at the eve of the Classic period. The three figures shown here are Altar Bases 4-6 of Kaminaljuyú, and Base 5 appears with special detail at right.

National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology


Kaminaljuyú Altar

This altar fragment depicts two elaborately adorned figures, at left and bottom, and a large animal mask at right. To the left of each figure stands a small cartouche with a bar-and-dot code widely used among the ancient Maya to count: one bar standing for "five" and each dot counting as "one." Notice the precision of the latticework on the rightmost edge and the organic style of the grotesque mask in this low relief.

National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology


Kaminaljuyú Cylinder

This stone piece is identified as a "tetrapod cylindrical altar." It stands on four short legs, and its relief portrays a figure with a macaw face pointing left, an early instance of this regal parrot in Maya art and mythology. Its designs fill the whole carving space.

National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology


Kaminaljuyú Relief

The low relief on this side of the monolithic piece features three rows of people, each uniquely identifiable by the worn headdress. Parts of this piece have broken off, but the common motif remains: in the middle of each row a seated ruler is flanked by a pair of attendees. The original site of Kaminaljuyú remains in Guatemala City as an attraction at the Miraflores shopping plaza.

National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology


Kaminaljuyú Stelae

What I find interesting about the styles of Kaminaljuyú really comes out by putting these two wholly different stone stelae beside each other. The figure on the left, Stele 9, is a softly edged abstract relief of a male, almost entirely nude save for a belt and a headdress. His speech flows out as a scroll, curling beneath a conch shell. Stele 11, on the other hand, is powerful and imposing, a fully dressed man dressed in an avian headdress and sporting a large knife. He stands upon a toponym, a "place-name," an artistic convention typically reserved for rulers. Stelae 11 is significant for its stylistic borrowings from the Olmec. Even though the Olmec civilization was waning toward the late Formative, the successive Maya sought to emulate its systems and symbols of rulership.

National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology