The Mayan Rain God Chahk Ceramics

The best example of this scene is known from a vase in the museum s collection 1978 412 206.

The mayan rain god chahk ceramics.

Karl taube 3 points out that the god chahk is already present at the beginning of the classic mayan religion 3 17 and stone and zender consider that its. The maya also had their own rain god chaac and may have imported. One group in particular shows the maya rain god known as chac interacting with a death god and a baby jaguar. These two structures a platform teetering on the edge of a 60 meter deep pool and a sweatbath compound were part of a ritual pilgrimage circuit traversed by the ancient maya to pay tribute to the rain god chahk during the extended droughts.

Chaak the ancient maya rain god wields a large axe marked with the hieroglyphic symbol for shiny objects in his left hand and an animate stone object in the shape of a skull in his right 7th 8th century. Chac is a reptilian critter with fangs and a rather droopy snout. Both were built around ad 800 900 when the region was choked by droughts. He s very good like that even teaching the.

B is for bursting clouds. A well known myth in which the chaacs or related rain and lightning deities have an. Very important for harvests and growing chac sends rain into the world by weeping from his large benevolent eyes. The rain deity is a patron of agriculture.

He s also one of the alphabet gods known as god b. A similar scene involves a full grown jaguar and chahk is labeled as the god of the first rain 1980 213. It contains one of the finest extant deity portraits from the classic maya corpus. Chaac spelled variously chac chaak or chaakh.

And referred to in scholarly texts as god b is the name of the rain god in the maya religion. This cylindrical drinking cup is the magnum opus of the maya vase painter known as the metropolitan master. During these trying times pilgrims visited both buildings to honor the rain god chahk. As with many mesoamerican cultures that based their living on rain dependent agriculture the ancient maya felt a particular devotion for the deities controlling rain.

At cara blanca rests the remains of two structures a platform near a deep pool and a sweatbath complex. His hair is a permanently knotted tangle of confusion which we find quite endearing. Chahk the god of rain and lightning was one of the most venerated and popular gods for the maya believed to see in him the cause of the rains hence the water essential for the crops.