Ballgame Stone Head (Hacha) (450–550 CE): Art, History and Details

Ballgame Stone Head (Hacha) (450–550 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Little can be said about this head’s identity and meaning, although the deep, dramatic furrows that line the face suggest age and the crest that curves across the top of the head has been compared to that of a bird. Such heads were one element of the regalia used in an ancient ballgame associated with complex mythology and equally elaborate art production on Mexico’s Gulf Coast, in present-day Veracruz.

Object facts

• Title: Ballgame Stone Head (Hacha)
• Date: 450–550 CE
• Culture: Mesoamerica, Classic Veracruz style
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: gray volcanic stone
• Dimensions: Overall: 21.1 x 15.3 x 16.2 cm (8 5/16 x 6 x 6 3/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1945.124

A detail from the museum

This head’s identity is unknown but the deep furrows on the face suggest age.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel D. Wise

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "Exhibition of the 'Art of the Americas.'" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 32, no. 9 (November 1945): 155-171.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, and Ralph T. Coe. The Imagination of Primitive Man: A Survey of the Arts of the Non-Literate Peoples of the World. Kansas City, Mo: The Museum, 1962.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.