Joint project of BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum, consisting of 100 objects used ancient art, industry, technology and arms, all of which are in the collections of the British Museum as the introduction of human history. Statue of the Maya maize god from Copán in Honduras. Shop unique, award-winning Artisan treasures by NOVICA, the Impact Marketplace. Stone. The statue is of the Mayan maize god. Stone. So the European colonisers in Mexico did not eat tortillas or other masa products. A common medium of Maya sculpture that is almost entirely lost to observers today is that of wood. The BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced. 1901,1012.6. Photo by BabelStone. It has virtually no nutritional value but, as we all know, it's uniquely able to liven up dull carbohydrates - and it shows that we've been foodies for as long as we've been farmers. Why not wheat or a certain type of meat? Some archaeologists argue that food must always have had a divine role even for our earliest ancestors; just think of the cow goddess of Egypt, or Bacchus and Ceres of classical mythology, or Annapurna, the Hindu goddess of food. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. This statue shows the Maya maize god as a youthful and handsome man with a stylised corn headdress. The sculpture was probably carved from two different blocks of limestone, one for the head and another for the torso. It was built in AD 715 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of his accession to the throne. The statue was commissioned by the 13th ruler of Copán , Waxaklajuun Ub'aah K'awiil, also known as … But he comes at the end of a very long tradition; Central Americans had been worshipping him and his predecessors for thousands of years, and his mythic story mirrors the annual planting and harvesting of the corn on which all Central American civilisation depended. Especially when you take corn to be used for other purposes other than to be eaten or be worshipped, but rather to be put into a car - it becomes a highly controversial issue.'. And his gestures, assuming they belong to the head, would undoubtedly have acted as prompts of some kind in any normal oral tradition of learning. From Indigenous clothing and Mexican skulls to necklaces made of dolphin teeth, this is one of the most extensive online museum databases in the world. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Many regional artistic traditions existed side by side, usually coinciding with the changing boundaries of Maya polities. google_ad_host="pub-6693688277674466"; The El-Amra clay model of cattle is a small ceramic sculpture dating from the Predynastic, Naqada I period in Ancient Egypt, at around 3500 BC. The myth of the maize god is just one example of how the development of agriculture led to major changes in how people across the world conceived their gods. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. So they spoke; the bearer, begetter, the makers, modellers - and a sovereign plumed serpent - they sought and discovered what was needed for human flesh. © Trustees of the British Museum. The answer lies not in maize's divine connections, but in the environment that Central America offered. Our statue of the maize god is obviously a comparative new boy; he's made as late as AD 700. Maya maize god statue, British Museum WLA lacma Tripod Vessel with Rattles Maya Maya Vessel with an enthroned Lord Kimbell Maya sculpture Louvre MH 82-17-26 Maya maize god statue, British Museum 1 Maya vessel with sacrificial scene DMA 2005-26 WLA metmuseum Maya Vessel with Mythological Scene 8th C It needed to be cooked in a mixture of water and white lime. But beans and squashes don't become gods - why does maize? Am 1923, Maud 8. From the 1730s symptoms of digestive disturbances, dementia and death were recorded. 'It's always present in one way or another - either to be eaten, or to be looked at, or to be worshipped. So even today for some people it's unthinkable that maize, the divine food, should end up in a petrol tank. The first exhibition in the revamped galleries of the British Museum brings together innumerable and beautiful images of humans from Congolese masks to Yemeni grave markers to Mayan maize … Visit the online shop. Where the Hebrew god made Adam out of dust, the Mayan gods used maize to make their humans. Object 9 of 100. The god of maize expected his disciples to work hard for their supper. Under the Mexica ruler, Moctezuma, corn became a symbol of life and fertility and was offered to the Gods as sacrifice. Collection online showcases more than four million of the Museum's objects. Maya Maize God statue at British Museum March 25, 2012. Honduras. Early farmers in Mexico grew chilli to make their maize taste better. This statue shows the Maya maize god as a youthful and handsome man with a stylised corn headdress. He was found in a pyramid-style temple in Copan in modern-day Honduras surrounded by many other maize gods. But then disaster struck. Across the world, people began to identify particular plants that would provide them with food. Joint project of BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum, consisting of 100 objects used ancient art, industry, ... Maya maize god statue. And since we don't even have a proper democracy who is to care anyway? It is one of several models found in graves at El-Amra in Egypt, and is now in the British Museum in London. English: Maya maize god statue. Nine thousand years ago, the maize cob was very hard, and eating it raw would have made you very ill. Thomasina Miers, Owner, Wahaca Mexican Market Eating. The head of the god is covered with an enormous headdress in the shape of a stylised corn cob, and his hair is like the silky strands that line the inside of a cob of corn, inside the wrapping leaves. The Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retells the history of human development from the first stone axe to the credit card, using 100 selected objects from the Museum. Even today, maize still dominates much of Mexican cuisine, and it still carries a surprisingly powerful religious and metaphorical charge, as restaurateur Santiago Calva knows only too well: 'The continuous spin-offs of maize into daily life is vast and complex. Given that we are Homo sapiens sapiens (of very little genius) most likely our slavish greed lust for the precious woods from the dwindling forests of the world will bring a similar price for our children to bear in the absence of any amazingly joined-up genius of our own. The British Museum shop has a range of unique gifts, replicas, games and more. Stone statue, found in Honduras. He was found in a pyramid-style temple in Copan in modern-day Honduras surrounded by many other maize gods. He is shown here as a youthful, handsome man. (Restaurateur Santiago Calva). This limestone statue of a Mayan maize god was found in Copán , Honduras. Maize was certainly a primary focus of ritual and religious veneration by ancient Meso-American people, going back all the way before the Maya and even into the Olmec civilisation.'. Museum stories Desire, love, identity: exploring LGBTQ histories A new audio commentary tour exploring LGBTQ histories in the Museum’s collection has just been launched. He was found in Copán, a major Mayan city and religious centre, whose monumental ruins you can still visit today. Their father was defeated by the Lords of Death in the Underworld. google_ad_height=600; After that they put into words the making, the modelling of our first mother-father, with yellow corn, white corn alone for the flesh, food alone for the human legs and arms for our first fathers, the four human works.'. There were eight mythological beings, four women and four men, who are the ancestors of all the Maya people. For them, lime was synonymous with death, as they used lime to disintegrate organic matter. All of the temple's statues were commissioned by the Mayan ruler of the day, to adorn the magnificent temple that he built at Copán around AD 700.