Illustration
This carved limestone relief, dated 23 August 783 CE, depicts three scribes being presented as prisoners to a Maya ruler. The captives are identified as scribes by the stick-bundle the first one holds (the traditional implements of scribes) and by their headdresses. Scribes were highly prized as prisoners as they were the ones who recorded the great deeds of the ruler. When a ruler was defeated the fingers of his scribes were broken. The fact that the piece is signed by the artist suggests the importance of the event depicted, the status of the artist, or both, as Maya art is rarely signed. The relief is presently in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.
License & Copyright
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Original image by FA2010. Uploaded by Joshua J. Mark, published on 08 July 2012. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
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Cite This Work
APA Style
FA2010. (2012, July 08). Presentation of Captives to a Maya Ruler. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/758/presentation-of-captives-to-a-maya-ruler/
Chicago Style
FA2010. "Presentation of Captives to a Maya Ruler." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified July 08, 2012. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/758/presentation-of-captives-to-a-maya-ruler/.
MLA Style
FA2010. "Presentation of Captives to a Maya Ruler." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 08 Jul 2012. Web. 20 Nov 2024.
