Source: Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller. The Blood of Kings; Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art. Fort Worth: Kimbell Art Museum, 1986, p. 293, plate 110.
Notes: This is the life-size stone head of a figuring representing the god of the Number Zero. (Remember that the Mayas' mathematical knowledge, unlike Europeans from the same period, included the number zero.) It comes from Copán, Honduras, in the late Classic period (770-780). It is housed in the Cleveland Museum of Art. He is wearing disk earflakes surrounded by a counterweight and a scroll; a mat is behind the central disk; a shield with a death-eye sign is seen on the headband, which shows the rattles of a rattlesnake. This figurine seems to represent the god as a sacrificial victim (i.e., his hair is bound and we see the hand under his chin, which is how he will be killed/sacrificed.
Questions: What is your reaction to the depiction of this figurine, this man? What do you think of the Mayan conception of the mathematical notion of zero?
Latin American humanities motifs: religio; science; realism