The Classic Maya political landscape was divided into more than two dozen polities, similar to city-states, with a major city and nearby allied villages and towns. Feasts sponsored by the ruling elite was a crucial avenue for securing relations among allies and negotiating new alliances. Feasts marked major state occasions, from rulers’ accession rites to royal weddings to war victory celebrations to special religious observances. Eating large amounts of high-status foods, including drinks made from highly valued cacao (chocolate), was the main point of the feasts. The richness of the food, the quantity of the food – and the beautiful vessels the food was served with – showed off how wealthy the host was.
The banquets caused the production of elaborate, finely-made vessels. Sometimes the vessels’ shapes were the attraction, sometimes the decorative images etched onto it. This vase is decorated with cacao pods, and the lid’s knob is a cacao tree with a bird (sadly now broken). There are also pictorial panels with images of, among other things, the maize god as an embodied cacao tree. Is anyone else sensing a theme here? The vase’s hieroglyphic text confirms that it was intended as a drinking cup for chocolate: -kakaw yuk'ib, or “the cacao drinking cup of … ” The text goes on to name the cup’s patron/owner, and his father Chakjal Mukuuy, “Reddening Dove.” The artistic quality of the vessel and its detailed naming of its owner indicate the two men were members of the nobility if not a royal dynasty of the 300s to 400s CE.
courtesy of the Walters Art Museum
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