Archive for category Mexico

Stela A, ceremonial bar (red) and projecting faces from the serpent heads (blue), Copan. Image taken in Copan Museum.

Ceremonial bars — also known as serpent bars — are a common symbol in the Maya world and often depicted being wielded by rulers on stelae.  They are typically employed when stelae were constructed to depict a period ending event.  The bar typically ends in two open serpent mouths, from which gods emerge; the serpent was the means of conveying a hallucinatory vision (the body of the serpent even paralleled the wisps of rising smoke from which burned blood offerings were delivered).

The bar is symbolic of the ruler’s role as intermediary both between the world of the living and the dead (in the underworld) and the world of the living and the gods (in the heavens). In Maya cosmology, this intermediary role is typically filled by the “world tree”, or axis mundi; the tree – with its roots extended to the underworld and its uppermost branches high in the sky – bridges the the same gap among the earth, underworld, and heavens.  Viewed from this perspective, when holding the serpent bar, the ruler effectively assumes the role of world tree, with the bar representing its branches. Read the rest of this entry »