Yaxchilán Vision Serpent
March 28, 755 A.D. Lintel 15 Yaxchilan
Yaxchilán is unique in its multitude of images
of Maya royalty engaged in ceremonial rituals
invoking their ancestors
in the form of what is called the “Vision
Serpent”. This is an isolated Vision Serpent
from the lintel dubbed
“The Vision Rite of Lady 6 Tun”.
Many monuments at Yaxchilán depict kings and
queens engaged in the ritual of bloodletting. If
this was a city of seers,
as many believe it was, then the bloodletting
ceremony was undoubtedly the ritual magic used
to start the seer on their journey.
To quote Linda Schele and David Friedel in A
Forest of Kings, ¨The aim of these great
cathartic rituals was the
vision quest, the opening of a portal into the
Otherworld through which gods and the ancestors
could be enticed so that the beings of this
world could commune with them.¨
These exquisite, perfectly-scaled,
durable Hydro-Calcite reproductions of ancient
Maya carvings are hand cast from molds
of hand-carved limestone reproductions created
by modern Maya artists in the Chiapas highland
rain-forests in Palenque, Mexico.
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