1978.39.2 Eccentric Flint: Figure (Maya, Central Maya lowlands?, Mexico?)

The Maya perfected the art of chipping flint to create thin, flat blades (tok’) for sacrificial and ceremonial use. The complex shapes of many of these objects, which are too fragile for use as cutting tools, have earned them the designation "eccentric flints." Archaeologists have found them in elite tombs and in offertory caches associated with dedication and termination rituals for architecture and stone monuments. Such symbolically charged objects may also have functioned as talismans for living kings. 

The Maya blade masters made a variety of weapons and magical objects from carefully chipped stone. The black blades were especially potent, and this example was probably hafted as a ceremonial axe. Real war axes could also carry multiple blades. The most famous design of a war axe was shaped like a flat baseball bat edged from the handle up with long prismatic blades. Witnesses on the battlefield say that the Maya hero Tecúm Umám cut off the head of the horse of Pedro de Alvarado with a single blow during the conquest of Guatemala—the Maya regarded horses as the supernatural companions and battle beasts of the Spaniards. The skeletal death god usually carries an axe with three black blades in it in a dance of death painted on many Classic Maya ceramic vessels. The axe carrying this blade was probably used in dance pageants of this kind.

Pre-Columbian (American): AAT: 300016619

Maya: AAT: 300017826

Lowland Maya: AAT: 300017099

Mexico (nation): TGN: 7005560

chert: AAT: 300011141

carving: AAT: 300053149

chipping: AAT: 300053752

Classic (mesoamerican period): AAT: 300016983

Late Classic Period: AAT: 300016986

ritual objects: AAT: 300312158

ceremonial objects: AAT: 300234117

blade (tool and equipment components): AAT: 30002491

cutting (dividing): AAT: 300053069

flint (rock): AAT: 300011143

sacrifices: AAT: 300263243

talismans: AAT: 300234011

axes (weapons): AAT: 300036982

weapons: AAT: 300036926

black (color): AAT: 300130920

power: AAT: 300374809

handles: AAT: 300024927

wars: AAT: 300055314

battles: AAT: 300185692

myth: AAT: 300201023

heroes: AAT: 300236801

histories (literature genre): AAT: 300026358

storytelling: AAT: 300250904

mythical or legendary beings: AAT: 300375725

Tecúm Umám (Tecun Uman / K'iche' Maya ruler / national hero of Guatemala): DMA

beheadings (executions / decapitations / personal life events): AAT: 300379186

head: AAT: 300262520

horses (animals): AAT: 300250148

Pedro de Alvarado (Pedro de Alvarado y Contreras/Spanish conquistador/Guatemala governor): DMA

Spanish conquest (events): DMA

Spanish Conquest of Mexico (Mexican and Spanish history): CONA: 1001730

conquests (events): AAT: 300410367

Guatemala (nation): TGN: 7005493

supernatural (concepts): AAT: 300055947

beasts: AAT: 300379738

deities: AAT: 300343850

skeletons (animal components): AAT: 300191778

Death (allegorical character / figure): CONA: 1000239

Death (allegorical character / figure): DMA

death god (deity): DMA

dance (discipline): AAT: 300054144

ceramics (object genre): AAT: 300151343

performances (entertainment events): AAT: 300069200

ritual (events): AAT: 300065284

pageants: AAT: 300069240

eccentric flint: DMA

tok': DMA

1969-1978: Alphonse Jax, New York [1], [2], [3], [4]

From 1978: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, The Roberta Coke Camp Fund, purchased from the above [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

[1] The main source for this provenance is existing information in TMS. Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[2] The main source for this provenance is letter from Alphonse Jax to John Lunsford, Senior Curator of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (dated November 30, 1978, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[3] The main source for this provenance is Acquisition Record (dated November 30, 1978, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[4] The main source for this provenance is Invoice from Alphonse Jax (dated January 04, 1979, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[5] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.

Apply to objects where number equals 1978.39.2