Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art

This engaging exploration of the Maya pantheon introduces readers to the complex stories of Mesoamerican divinity through the stunning carvings, ceramics, and metalwork of the Classic period

Focusing on the period between A.D. 250 and 900, Lives of the Gods reveals that ancient Maya artists evoked a pantheon as rich and complex as the more familiar Greco-Roman, Hindu-Buddhist, and Egyptian deities. The authors show how this powerful cosmology informed some of the greatest creative achievements of Maya civilization, represented here from the monumental to the miniature through more than 140 works in jade, stone, and clay. Thematic chapters supported by new scholarship on recent archaeological discoveries detail the different types of gods and their domains, the role of the divine in the lives of the ancient Maya, and the continuation of these traditions from the colonial period through the present day.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule:

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX
(May 7-September 3, 2023)

Joanne Pillsbury is Andrall E. Pearson Curator of Ancient American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos is associate professor of anthropology at Yale University and curator at the Yale Peabody Museum. James Doyle is associate research professor and director of the Matson Museum of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, State College.