A well-made, glossy-surfaced blackware ceramic was produced in the Maya lowlands of southern Mexico and central Guatemala during the sixth century. Actually a lustrous brown-black or red-black color, the ware was used mainly for important ceramic vessels of significant sculptural shape and for bowls with meaningful incised or carved imagery. The present example illustrates the latter type: the wonderfully round shape was carved with a continuous depiction of large, undulating feathered serpents. Between strictly defined outlines, two serpents unwind with regularity. Profile figures seated before the open jaws of the serpents—symbolic of caves—are an early version of a depiction widely used in later Maya times. The bearded and feathered serpent, known by many authorities as the Bearded Dragon, is thought to be the personification of the underworld. An unusual feature of this bowl is the incised series of bars and dots on the inside near the rim. They appear to be Maya numbers; if a date is indeed meant, the bowl was inscribed in A.D. 539.