Head of a Young Noble
Unknown Artist
746
Medium
stone
Dimensions
53.3 × 35.6 × 52.1 cm · former: 52.8 × 35.3 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of the Hanna Fund
Accession Number
1953.154
About this artwork
This young noble may be a political official of 8th-century Copán, an important site in eastern Maya territory. The noble, who embodies the Maya ideal of masculine beauty, wears circular ear ornaments and a headband, above which the tied hair rises. The meaning of the disembodied hand that cups the chin is debated. The head, collected by Harvard archaeologists in the 1890s, comes from the facade of a building may have been used as a council house by a Copán ruler and his advisors during a crisis...