Maize God
J_Maize God 1
Details of a Classic period Maya vase showing the Young Maize God lifting and lowering his outstretched right palm. The animation repeats for as long as the ceramic is turned, with its flow smoothed by the figure’s sweeping, long headdress feathers touching and thus connecting the deity’s two depictions. The figure sits in what might be a canoe that is giving the impression of rocking as missing its right-hand supporting ‘curl’ in the second depiction; the unseen in-between thus encourages the viewer’s brain to imagine the movement.
Animation extracted and adapted from Robicsek and Hales 1981:65, vessel 7.
J_Maize God 2
Details of a Classic period vase animating the Maize God, aided by a dwarf assistant in his first and third depictions, to undress (by removing clothes, staff and large hat) and forcing God L to the ground before stepping on him in domination.
Animation extracted and adapted from Robicsek and Hales 1981:15, vessel 2.
The skull tilts its head up and back and opens its jaw while the Maize God lifts off the waterbed, using the waterlily blossom as a springboard.
Animation extracted and adapted from Kerr 2000:946, file no. 5941.
J_Maize God 4
Classic period polychrome vase depicting the Young Maize God in triplicate to animate, on rotation of the vase, his ‘birthing’, rising up from the cleft of a large K’awiil head (God of Birth) submerged in water.
Simultaneously, the cleft widens and the foliage issuing from the back of the deity’s head extends in growth and the deity’s loin cloth drifts up and down.
Animation extracted and adapted from Kerr 1990:275, vessel no. 2723.
J_Maize God 5
Details of a Classic period Maya vase animating, on rotation, in three groups of three figures, two naked ladies lifting up their arms towards a youthful figure, possibly the Maize God; the youth is also shown lifting up his palm.
Animation extracted and adapted from Robicsek and Hales 1981:68, vessel 84.