Shallow bowl with jaguar

This large shallow Maya bowl has a central jaguar motif executed in black and white slip-painting on a red ground. Jaguars were important to the cosmology of the Maya due to their ability to travel from one world to the next; jaguar deities are thus deities of the underworld. Xbalanque, one of the Hero Twins, is shown covered with patches of jaguar pelt. God L, the primary god of the underworld, is often shown with jaguar ears or clothing. The underworld is not only the home of the ancestors but is also the source of plants and of life-giving water, since the sacred “cenotes” (sinkhole wells into the limestone) extend under the earth occupied by humans. Jaguars thus represent water and fertility. Maya kings wore jaguar pelts as a sign of their high status, and often took a jaguar name (such as Jaguar Paw) to indicate their own power and prestige.