Painted Vase with Ruler and Scribe (600–900): Art, History and Details

Painted Vase with Ruler and Scribe (600–900) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Among Maya noble families, finely painted ceramic vessels were used as fancy tableware, treasured gifts that secured the support of allies, and funerary offerings placed in tombs. Accordingly, the vessels’ imagery varies from religious themes to scenes of courtly life. Here, two attendants kneel before an enthroned nobleman who wears an enormous bird-head headdress.

Object facts

• Title: Painted Vase with Ruler and Scribe
• Date: 600–900
• Culture: Guatemala, Northern Peten or Mexico, Southern Campeche, Maya, late Classic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: pottery with burnished, colored slips
• Dimensions: Overall: 24.5 x 10.5 cm (9 5/8 x 4 1/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1990.181

A detail from the museum

A string of death glyphs below the rim departs from the Primary Standard Sequence.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener

Further reading listed by the museum

• Coe, Michael D. The Maya Scribe and His World. 1973.
• Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 7 (1992): 234-75.

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.