Polychrome Maya vase rollouts, Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad Francisco Marroquin

This is a digital rollout using a Dicomed version of the Better Light tri-linear scanner; 4x5 camera, Schneider or Rodenstock macro lens; Gitzo tripod.

The advantage of the digital rollout cameras of FLAAR is that they are precise. Hand made, home-made rollout cameras are also nice, but really distort the perspective since the size is estimated by tabulation. With a computer-controlled digital rollout, you “measure” the vase digitally and can get a much more accurate rendition.

You notice this when any home-made, hand made rollout camera image is enlarged: the distortion in proportions is immediately embarrassingly obvious (plus the quality of the image evaporates as you enlarge it).

With this digital image we can enlarge it to one meter high (one yard high) by 14 meters long (or even larger if you want).

This person is wearing the identical back-decoration outfit as the skeleton later in the scene.

Self-sacrifice is shown several times on Late Classic Maya vases and bowls. The Popol Vuh also speaks about the Hero Twins killing themselves and/or each other or other people and then bringing them back to life. Considering all the plants the Maya had to smoke, eat, and drink, getting people to actually decapitate themselves in religious ecstasy was probably not very difficult.

This personage is similar but not identical to the person holding the heart-sacrificed baby. So this lends a bit more suggestion that both are male.

The jaguar holding on to the stick is also a bit more evidence that trained jaguars were utilized in rituals, processions, and were present in human sacrifices. In other scenes however, dancers are men dressed as jaguars. But in the present scene, it is actual jaguars which are being shown.

This partially skeletonized jaguar has a large enema syringe (cluster) in his forward hand and the typical “enema jug” in his other hand. Michael Coe was the iconographer who first identified enema iconography. I found many more scenes of enemas and my comments on these were included in a PhD level dissertation by a scholar in Europe. It is an honor to have a student put my material inside their thesis or dissertation as an appendix or comparable.

You can download this on www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3528674.

This area of the scene is as much a study in epigraphy in addition to iconography.

I have photographs of two other vases showing segments of the same scene as the Castillo Bowl. However the Castillo Bowl has nine segments; the other two polychrome painted pots show fewer.

One is a low bowl; the other is a very small vase.

The giant raptor has an idealized human head in its mouth. Whether the bird is vomiting out the head of a dead person, or ingesting it, should be studied.

This type of bird can be found on other vases, bowls, and plants.

The black-and-white decorated bone-throne is the same as for the acrobatic jaguar on this same bowl. The “bone throne” is also similar to those as found in the Dresden Codex.

It would be helpful to identify whether this is a man or a woman. The face is very similar to idealized men in Maya scenes, though the hair is a bit long. We can’t see the breast area because it is covered with the person’s arms.

The v-shaped hole in the baby’s chest is where its heart has been cut out. Sacrificing babies was an unfortunate aspect of most “civilizations” of Mesoamerica, and probably painfully common in many other cultures around the world. The actual skeletons of these sacrificed babies are found by archaeologists in caves or under temples or other structures.

This skeletal character seems to have either a bad case of dandruff or a “bad hair day.” There are several skeletal deities shown in Late Classic Maya vases, bowls, and plates. Most of them are similar to the deities, demons, and devils of Xibalba of the Popol Vuh.

The horizontal item tied around the skeleton’s back has the same black-white-black pattern as the bones under and behind the jaguar. The same design concept can be found on other Mayan vases.

I have always estimated that the Classic Mayan kings and high priests had trained pet jaguars in their courts. Jaguars are relatively easy to train; Photographer Dicky Mata (brother of Dr Billy Mata, first president of the Museo Popol Vuh) had a pet jaguar; he used to carry the full-grown jaguar on his shoulders.

There is a person in Mexico who takes his jaguar to the restaurant with him.

Naturally it is not considered appropriate to keep pet felines, but most people who understandably say not to keep jaguars do not realize that 90% of the jaguars returned to the wild die or are killed (because there is almost no more jungle for them to surive in).

Camazotz of the Popol Vuh, what I call the Slicer Bat. Several Chama vases show the Camazotz, as do Lowland Maya polychrome plates and vases. Plus there is one bat sculpture in the Museo Popol Vuh and a larger bat sculpture in the Copan Sculpture Museum, Copan Ruinas, Honduras.

The crossed-bones are common on several other bat personages. Would be helpful to know if these are animal bones or stylized human bones.

The other design on many carnivorous bat wings are disembodied eyes, but these round circles have sprockets and no “root” of an eyeball.

Map showing the location of the Museo Popol Vuh and Museo Ixchel on the campus of UFM (Universidad Francisco Marroquin)