Zoomorphic ornament

From as early as the first millennium BCE (600 BCE), Maya nobility often adorned themselves in fine ornamentation made of greenstone, with jade considered to be the most precious material. This pendent depicts a frontal serpent head, with curvilinear markings to resemble its keeled scales. It is designed with deeply inset eyes, flared nostrils, and lolling tongue rendered in low relief. Serpents use their elongated tongues to smell their surroundings. This figure’s slithering tongue is suggestive of a potent moment in which the predator is about to strike its prey.

Throughout Mesoamerican cosmology, snakes are depicted as liminal figures that traverse the fringes of the celestial, terrestrial, and underworld realms. In several artistic renderings, including the Maya murals of San Bartolo in northern Guatemala, the serpent is depicted as emerging from the maw of a mountain cave, with fecund breath emanating from its head (Saturno et al. 2005). The Feathered Serpent would become a pervasive deity image throughout Mesoamerica, a powerful, composite creature with avian and rattlesnake features that can transcend both the human and divine planes.

Serpents are also associated with rebirth because of their natural ability to undergo molting, in which the animal sheds old parts of its skin to accommodate bodily growth. The apple-green shade of Maya jade is symbolically associated with renewal, the sprouting of maize, water, and wind. These material and color connotations of vitality are conflated with the ornament’s imagery, depicting the visage of a ferocious, burgeoning predator that had undergone its own transformation of bodily renewal. Similar jade ornaments have been discovered as far as the city of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico and the Caribbean coast, with these works playing a vital role in elite trade networks in Mesoamerica (Kovacevich & Callaghan, 2019: 462). This pendant likely embodied the authority and potency of a Maya ruler as well as the circulation of opulent materials throughout the Americas (for a later but comparable example of a Maya jade ornament, see MMA 2007.134).

Jade objects like this are frequently seen in later Maya art of the Classic period (250–900 CE) as the central jewel of regal headbands. During accession ceremonies, the incoming ruler was bestowed a paper-cloth headband, a powerful moment in which they were “wrapped” into the role of authority. Eight perforations were carefully drilled into this ornament using sharp chisels made of obsidian or flint. The suspension holes allowed for the ornament to be sewn onto a woven garment or headband, likely transforming it into royal attire and its owner into a divine king or queen.

The labor involved in procuring and exporting jade made it a particularly valuable material. These sumptuous stones were predominantly quarried from the Motagua River Valley, located in the highlands of northeastern Guatemala. Sculptors used techniques of knapping and cutting to shapen jade, requiring hours of labor to produce a finished ornament. The tools used included either a flint blade or wet fibers knotted with abrasive materials made of quartz, jade, or obsidian to saw through the hard stone and incise imagery (Filloy Nadal 2017: 69). This pendant also underwent a process of burnishing, in which sculptors carefully rubbed the surface with jade or other abrasive materials to produce its smooth, luminous sheen. Traces of red pigment made of cinnabar or hematite were applied onto the serpent’s carved eye sockets, scales, and drill holes. Red may have been used to accentuate the pendant’s decorative motifs (Brittenham 2015: 34). Furthermore, the potential application of rare cinnabar on an already precious surface created layered displays of wealth, and an adornment perhaps later involved in ritual practices of funerary offerings that communed with its royal owner into the afterlife.

Brandon Agosto, 2025

Further reading:

Brittenham, Claudia. “Three Reds: Cochineal, Cinnabar, and Hematite in the Prehispanic Mesoamerican World.” In A Red like No Other: How Cochineal Colored the World, edited by Carmella Padilla and Barbara Anderson, pp. 26-35. Santa Fe: Museum of International Folk Art and Scala Publishers, 2015.

Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Jade in Mesoamerica.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jade2/hd_jade2.htm (October 2001)

Filloy Nadal, Laura. "Forests of Jade: Luxury Arts and Symbols of Excellence in Ancient Mesoamerica." In: Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, Timothy F. Potts, and Kim N. Richter. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2017, pp. 67-77.

Houston, Stephen D., David Stuart, and Karl A. Taube. The Memory of Bones: Body, Being and Experience Among the Classic Maya. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006.

Kovacevich, Brigitte, and Michael G. Callaghan, “Fifty Shades of Green: Interpreting Maya Jade Production, Circulation, Consumption, and Value,” Ancient Mesoamerica 30 (2019): 457–472.

López Austin, Alfredo. Mito y realidad de Zuyuá: serpiente emplumada y las transformaciones mesoamericanas del clásico al posclásico. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999.

Magaloni Kerpel, Diana. "El jade, materia luz y color en el arte mesoamericano," In: Piedras del cielo, civilizaciones del jade, México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, 2012, pp. 23-28.

Saturno, William A., Karl A. Taube, and David Stuart. “Los murales de San Bartolo, El Petén, Guatemala, parte 1: El mural del norte, Ancient América, no. 7. Center for American Studies, 2005.

Stuart, David. "The Royal Headband: A Pan-Mesoamerican Hieroglyph," Maya Decipherment, January 26, 2015, https://mayadecipherment.com/2015/01/26/the-royal-headband-a-pan-mesoamerican-hieroglyph-for-ruler/.

Taube, Karl A., and Reiko Ishihara-Brito. "From Stone to Jewel: Jade in Ancient Maya Religion and Rulership." In Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, Miriam Doutriaux, Reiko Ishihara-Brito, and Alexandre Tokovinine. Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks, No. 4. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2012, pp. 134–53.