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Teaching the Maya - RESOURCE: geometric designs

31st Aug 2017

Teaching the Maya - RESOURCE: geometric designs

Page of Maya geometric design motifs from pottery from Spinden

Here’s a new resource on the Maya: a page of traditional geometric design motifs used in pottery decoration. It’s from the classic work A Study of Maya Art by Herbert J. Spinden (Dover Publications, New York, 1975 - originally published in 1913). Spinden was a pioneering US Mayanist and art historian. (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

As you can see from the page, in Classic Maya art the fret and the spiral motifs were used frequently and were finely developed. As a rule, the geometric elements are found applied in bands around the neck or rim of the vessel. In the example we show here, it’s the whole damn thing! Can you spot the bat face in the middle? And match the design on the vessel to the closest match on the page at the top?

Photo © by, courtesy of and thanks to Justin Kerr, Mayavase.com (link below).

See a delightful cartoon video ‘The Legend of the Bat’Justin Kerr’s superb Mayavase database

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Teaching the Maya - RESOURCE: geometric designs

Page of Maya geometric design motifs from pottery from Spinden

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