Publication Information
1981 Robicsek, Frances, and Donald Hales. The Maya Book of the Dead. Vessel 120, p. 92, 95-96. (Illustration).
1986 The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art. Cat. 122 (Exhibition)
1987 Stuart, David. Ten Phonetic Syllables. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing 14. Washington, D.C., Center for Maya Research.
1990 Schele, Linda, and David A. Freidel. A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. New York, William Morrow and Company, Inc. Plate 122, Fig. 2:4 (Illustration)
1992 Taube, Karl A. The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan. Washington, Dumbarton Oaks. Fig. 4c. (Illustration)
1993 Schele, Linda, David Freidel, and Joy Parker. Maya Cosmos. New York, Harper Collins. Fig. 2:23 (Illustration)
1994 Stuart, David, and Stephen Houston. Classic Maya Place Names. Washington, Dumbarton Oaks. Fig. 92 (Illustration)
1998 Reents Budet, Dorie. Elite Maya Pottery and Artisans as Social Indicators. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 8(1):71-89. Fig. 5.2. (Illustration)
1999 Kerr, Justin. K1609. The Maya Vase Database. http://research.mayavase.com
2001 Newsome, Elizabeth A. Trees of Paradise and Pillars of the World. Austin, University of Texas Press. Fig. 2.25 (Illustration)
2003 Looper, Matthew. Lightning Warrior: Maya art and Kingship at Quirigua. Austin, University of Texas Press. Fig. 2.25, 3.10 (Illustration)
2006 Velásquez García, Erik. The Maya Flood Myth and the Decapitation of the Cosmic Caiman. PARI Journal 7(1): 1-10. Fig. 3 (Illustration).
2010 Finamore, Daniel, and Stephen Houston (eds.). Fiery Pool: Maya and the Mythic Sea. Salem, Peabody Essex Museum. Fig. 3.10 (Illustration)
2013 Tokovinine, Alexandre. Place and Identity in Classic Maya Narratives. Washington, Dumbarton Oaks. Fig. 30a (Illustration)
2014 Kettunen, Harri and Christophe Helmke. Water in Maya Imagery and Writing. Contributions in New World Archaeology 5: 17-38. Fig. 7 (Illustration)
2015 Steinbach, Penny. Aligning the Jester God: The Implications of Horizontality and Verticality in the Iconography of a Classic Maya Emblem. In Maya Imagery, Architecture, and Activity, Maline D. Werness-Rude and Kaylee R. Spencer, eds., pp. 106-139. Fig. 2.7. (Illustration)
2016 Doyle, James A. Creation Narratives on Ancient Maya Codex-Style Ceramics in the Met’s Collections. Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 51, pp. 42-63. (Illustration)
2016 McDonald, J. Andrew. Deciphering the Symbols and Symbolic Meaning of the Maya World Tree. Ancient Mesoamerica 27(2): 333-359. Fig. 1 (a). (Illustration)
2016-2018 On loan to MMA (L.2016.28)
2017 Doyle, James, and Stephen Houston. The Universe in a Maya Plate. Maya Decipherment. 3 April 2017. https://decipherment.wordpress.com/2017/03/04/the-universe-in-a-maya-plate/
2017 Chinchilla Mazariegos, Oswaldo. Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya. New Haven, Yale University Press. Fig. 125, 126 (Illustration)
Explain why the object fits the exception set forth above
The work was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from March 8, 2002 through July 25, 2003.
In addition, the work has reported provenance to the late 1970s and was first published in 1981. This well-known Maya plate has been very widely published since, having been exhibited in the foundational Blood of Kings exhibition in the 1980s and featured in the catalogue. The work has also been published on Justin Kerr’s website Mayavase.com since the 1990s (photo K1609). The work was on loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for display from 2002 – 2003 and from 2016 through 2018.
The work is a unique composition in the “codex-style”, a calligraphic painting tradition that flourished in the seventh and eight centuries in southern Campeche, Mexico, and northern Petén, Guatemala. Examples of this style, such as MMA 1978.412.206, were known to be collected in the 1960s.
Museum’s Definition of Antiquity: Created before the Age of Exploration (beginning in the early 15th century) and buried at one time.
