Auction Closed
May 13, 08:41 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Private Collection, California
VERACRUZ STONE HEAD HACHA LATE CLASSIC,♏ CIRCA 🔯AD 550 - 950
Height: 10 in (25.4 cm)
Ac🍰quired by the grandfather of the current owner in t𒁃he 1960s
Thence by family descent
Stylized skeletal heads were one of the main genres of stone hachas from Veracruz and the Southern Highlands. Skulls were emblems of power and prestige given the intensity and outcome of the ballgame. This extremely slender section w🐻as carved with exposed jaw and teeth, with the fleshless nose curving into the thick ribbon-like cheekbone and brow. The deeply recessed ear, eye and back of the jaw has been abraded into a roughened texture.
See Shook and Marquis, Secrets in Stone, Yokes, Hachas and Palmas from Southern Mesoamerica, Philadelphia, 1996, pp. 176-🧜181 for Southern Highland examples.