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Figure Emerging from a Water Lily. State of Campeche, Mexico. Maya artist, 600–900. Ceramic, pigments, 8 1/4 x 2 1/8 x 1 11/16 in. (21 x 5.4 x 4.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsey Fund, 70.31
Images of human beings emerging from flowers represent a special class of Maya figurines found primarily on Jaina Island, just off Mexico's Campeche coast, a place that may have functioned as a major funerary center. Jaina figurines are among the most intricate and detailed ceramic works produced in pre-Columbian America. In this exquisite example, a slender, youthful male rises in an attitude of calm authority from a water-lily pod. Because the water lily is associated with the underworld in Maya cosmology, this figurine may have been intended to symbolize the renewal of life after death.
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum