Cleveland Museum of Art

Incense-burner Cover

Date

c. 500

Medium

earthenware with slip and pigments

Culture

Guatemala, Escuintla Region, early 6th Century

Department

Art of the Americas

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This elaborate clay construction served as the cover and chimney of a basin used to burn copal incense. Although probably manufactured in what is now Guatemala, the form and fabrication are based on examples from Teotihuacan in central Mexico, hundreds of miles away. Intensive trade between the two regions, or even a Teotihuacan colony in Guatemala seems likely. The masked, dressed, and ornamented moundlike form probably represents a mortuary bundle or a cult image.

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