Chahk
Not on view
Throughout the first millennium, Maya rulers commissioned impressive monumental sculptures to imbue their royal complexes with divine authority. Rendered in the round from local limestone, this figure represents the Maya deity Chahk, the supreme god of tropical rain. As a personification of rain, thunder, and lighting, the god is visualized as a fearsome deity. His grimacing mouth and full cheeks evoke the power and noise of a storm. Chahk wields an ax, symbolic of lightning; although now missing its blades, the weapon emphasizes the violence associated with the rains required for agricultural fertility.
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