(gentle piano music)
- [Beth] We're here in the Maya galleries
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking at
a very rare figure, rare because it's made out of wood.
And it dates to the sixth century so this is really old
and has survived remarkably well.
- [James] We have very few objects made out of wood
from the classic Maya civilizations.
- [Beth] It's humid in Guatemala,
and wood just doesn't survive.
- [James] We only have a handful
of portable wooden sculptures from that period.
- [Beth] Now, his posture is very unusual,
but we can explain that by thinking about his role
and what he was doing.
- [James] He's kneeling, he's folding his arms
and clenching his fists to his chest,
indicating someone who would hold a reflective plaque
towards the ruler, and this we call mirrors,
but they were actually probably made of obsidian or pyrite.
- [Beth] And they were mosaics, they weren't flat mirrors
the way that we think of them.
- [James] Right, they would probably be composed
of many tiles.
- [Beth] Holding a mirror to a ruler
makes sense when you think about the kings
of the Maya Kingdoms and their divine status.
And so you can imagine a royal figure
looking at himself and posing in front of this mirror.
- [James] In addition to using them while getting dressed
or of adjust the royal regalia, they may have had
a cosmological or spiritual significance as devices
used for divining or guiding decisions in the royal court.
- [Beth] Or even as portals to another world.
- [James] Exactly, and we have some evidence
from later cultures that there were indeed conceived of
as portals to different realms.
- [Beth] We know that there were likely real human figures
who performed this role at the royal court,
and likely dwarfs.
- [James] Like in many courtly societies across the world,
people born with forms of genetic dwarfism
were thought of as very special and desired people
to have in royal courts.
So the Maya rulers are often shown getting dressed
or performing ceremonial duties with dwarf attendants.
- [Beth] And it's clear that he is special.
He is fabulously dressed, he's got on this large pectoral,
his ear flares and these dangling decorations
from the ear flares, this woven garment.
- [James] I think the woven garments are actually,
we have zero that survived from classic Maya context
so we have to infer what they would have looked like
from representations like this.
- [Beth] Right, because textiles don't survive
in a humid environment.
- [James] One of the most unique aspects of his attire
is this sash that goes around his neck
and comes behind his arms and connects
to the skirt that he's wearing.
We've not seen that in other depictions,
so it's a very unique garment.
- [Beth] He leans back in order to hold up the mirror
but it also seems like a pose of honoring the king.
- [James] The arms are often brought to the chest,
either both arms or one arm
in a sign of deference to the ruler.
- [Beth] When we talk about the Maya,
we're not talking about one kingdom,
we're talking about many kingdoms
and rivalries between the kingdoms.
- [James] The prevailing model for the political
organization is not one unified territory or empire
like in other cultures, but we do see
competing city-states that are headed by these divine rulers
at the center of their royal courts.
And they would commission works to both reinforce
their own status as the divine rulers in their territory,
but they would also use art as diplomatic gifts.
- [Beth] So let's look closely at that pectoral
that he wears.
- [James] The pectoral is likely representing a mosaic
made of jade or green stone that shows the face
of either a person or a deity
surrounded by jewelry that the pectoral wears itself.
- [Beth] Green stone was incredibly valuable
and even had supernatural associations for the Maya
and for many Mesoamerican cultures.
- [James] Yes, jade was more valuable
than pretty much any other material,
including gold for the Maya.
It was closely associated with maize agriculture
as the staple crop and it was the embodiment
of the maize god himself.
- [Beth] So is that also jade that he's likely wearing
in the ear flares?
- [James] Most likely, we see these types
of circular assemblages in jade a lot.
The other possibility is that it could be representing
an ear flare assemblage of marine shell.
- [Beth] And there's an interesting figure at the very base
of those dangling circles that come down from the ear flare.
- [James] That is a probably reptilian creature,
we don't know a secure identification or name for it
but it is often in royal regalia.
It is distinguished by its curled snout
and the lack of a lower jaw.
- [Beth] We can see red pigment here still,
so this would have been much brighter originally.
- [James] The Maya often adorned sculptures
with red pigments, this is an iron-based pigment,
probably hematite, and there are even flecks
of specular hematite which look like glitter
that are still present on the surface of the wood.
- [Beth] And we can even see it in the notches
that would have helped to hold the mirror in place.
- [James] And it seems to have been rubbed
all over the torso as well.
- [Beth] When a Maya scholar looks at this,
you're going to compare it to other works
with similar court scenes.
There's one vase in particular that seems to show
a figure that's similar to this one.
- [James] There is a painted vessel in the collection
of the National Gallery of Australia
that shows a king sitting on his throne
surrounded by courtiers and musicians
and directly in front of him is a smaller figure
that could be a representation of a wooden mirror-bearer
in the company of other courtiers,
including a human dwarf who is drinking from a bowl.
- [Beth] That scene is wonderful because it gives us an idea
of the way in which this may have been used
in the life of the court.
- [James] When the courtly person who commissioned it
specified this, they probably were representing
an embodiment of an ideal courtier, the ideal mirror-bearer.
- [Beth] This has been in the Met's collection for decades
but we don't know exactly where it was found
which is unfortunate because if we had a find spot
we might know a lot more about it.
- [James] This was likely found in a royal tomb,
probably either in northern Guatemala or southern Mexico.
- [Beth] So likely a very dry sealed environment that--
- [James] Absolutely.
- [Beth] Kept this protected so that we could
enjoy it here today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(light piano music)