Maya Portrayal of the Cosmos

Exploring the Early Americas The Jay I. Kislak Collection

Pre-Contact America | Explorations and Encounters | Aftermath of the Encounter

Languages and Religion | Competition for Empire | Documenting New Knowledge

Carved bowl with swirl patterns.
Guatemalan Lowlands. AD 200–500.
Burnished black-brown ceramic.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (136)
Photo ©Justin Kerr, Kerr Associates

Additional Images

Maya Portrayal of the Cosmos (side)

Maya Portrayal of the Cosmos (bottom)

The Maya portrayed the cosmos and the otherworld in myriad ways. Serpents and alligators became the tangible entities inhabiting the otherworld and encircling the earth or the heavens. A sky-serpent spirals his way around this elegantly thin-walled bowl. Here the universe is portrayed as an ever-changing conflict between light and dark, day and night, and this world and the other world. The bowl’s carved areas include abstract renditions of reptilian creatures combined with celestial signs. These flow into the great cosmic serpent that is the Milky Way.