Today, Wednesday, 4/4/2018, we begin with a welcome meeting
after breakfast, then head for the bus to go to the museums. The first museum we will visit is the Popol
Vuh Archaeology Museum located at one of the Universities in the City. On the way, we pass a number of statues and
monuments depicting different persons or events in history. This is one of them and I do not remember
what it was, but I did like the horse and fish protruding from the base.
Now this is bull; Ha Ha Ha!
This statue was in the island between roadways. A number of animal statues were along our way
to the museum; this was one of the easier pictures to get.
While we were making our way to the entrance of the museum,
I took a picture of these flowers. We
have seen these before, but I thought they made a good flower clump with
excellent colors.
At the entrance to the Popol Vuh Archaeology Museum were these
Macaw Heads that could have been sculpture decorations in a Mayan ball
court.
We are inside the Museum and I had to pay a $2.00US fee to
take pictures. I figure it as a
donation. Shortly after entering the
museum several pieces were in a glass case, including this pot and cover. Notice the skulls along the side of the pot.
Check out this bowl that was in one of the glass cases and
is figured to have been from the year 250 AD (plus or minus 100 years). Go figure, they had Mickey Mouse over 1500
years before Disney.
I cannot believe some of the pieces of pottery found at the
different sites. This one looks as if it
could have been come out of a Dungeons & Dragons or fantasy computer
game.
Now what do you think of this figure; it is definitely a
creature from the Star Wars movies. These
sculptures are over a couple of thousand years before the movies, wow!
In addition to the pottery, head figures and urns, there was
a display of the jade jewelry found at the excavation sites. Look at the pieces, necklaces, bracelets, ear
loops, and any number of different sized beads; imagine the work that had to go
into these back in 600 AD with only hand tools.
There are many different pieces of pottery and figurines
here at this museum, but what set this group apart from any others I’ve ever
seen is that these are Funeral urns. Are
these fantastic or what? Check out the
skulls on the back urn. Now these are the
size of our modern funeral urns, the big one has to have a capacity of at least
6-8 gallons that is just enough room to stuff one person into.
Also in the center of the room in a case is “Lord Bat”, the
colloquial name for this sculpture. As
the placard indicated, it was probably an ornament on the top of a roof at the
site of Copan. But look at it; bat head,
human body holding a robe like a modern day wrestler; and in this end Lord
Bat!!
Now if you ask me, I think someone had to have his or her
chocolate fix when they made this figurine.
Look at all of the cocoa pods that adorn this figure. Head to toe (or waist for this figure) and
all around the body. Chocolate anyone?
Not everyone was content to make figurines, urns, and jewelry, and it wasn’t all fun and games. No, they also made knives,
spears, and other nasty looking hooked blades.
Look at some of these with the curved hooked ends; as I said nasty.
Before we move into the Colonial Period, check this piece
out. It was a fragment from the corner
of a funerary urn and I’ll leave it up to you to decide what the person who
sculptured this meant. It looks like someone is knocking two heads together.
We moved into the room of the Colonial Period, which ranged
from the years 1524 to 1821. This is the
period when the Spanish brought the Inquisition to Central America and was
converting everyone. This is the Virgin
of the Assumption and is a gilded and painted woodcarving. It shows the moment when the Virgin Mary
ascended into heaven, according to the catholic tradition. Our Lady of the Assumption is the patron
saint of the New Guatemala.
Look at this statuette of St. Michael the archangel defeating
the demon imprisoned in a gold chain.
While I was at the end of the museum and waiting for
everyone to get here, I decided to backtrack and take pictures of a few more
items. Here is a bowl of some sort
adorned with Quetzals, the feathers were valued as precious items. The representations on paintings, sculptures
and ceramics indicate the bird’s importance.
We left the museum and as we made our way out to the lobby,
where we see this jaguar head carved out of a boulder.
Okay, tell me what this looks like to you. . . . To me, it is a chicken sitting up on a beer
can for cooking on a grill; and all this time I thought it was a recent
invention.
We leave Popol Vuh and head over to the Ixchel museum. This is a textile museum on the weaving and
cloth making of the Mayan peoples.
Before going in I get a picture of this orchid near the entrance.
This represents a back strap loom. The stick on the left ties to a strong
location and the strap on the right would go around the back of the person using
the loom, giving tension to the fabric. Inserting
different colored threads along the rows will make the proper design.
Here is a close-up of one of the weaves. It did not say, but I think this fabric is a
recently made and represents those made years ago. Fabrics are still made today using this same back-strap
method of weaving.
The Huipil was a garment common to the different ethnic
groups of Mayan peoples. Depicted here
are 117 different huipiles, one for each town influenced by the Spanish in
1524, so the Spanish knew which town they belonged to.
There were many examples of the fabrics made along with some
of the more modern looms. On our way out
of this museum, we came across these facemasks.
I’m not sure in what context they were used, but many have three horns
coming out of the foreheads. Others look
very human in appearance like the one on the far right side; it even has a
smile.
After lunch, we are back on the bus for a City tour and decided
we would show you the electrical and telephone lines along the streets. I would hate to be the one to have to go in
that mess and to try to fix something.
As we travel around Guatemala City, we see a number of
statues, it is difficult to get a good picture, but we did with this
Christopher Columbus statue.
It is not unusual for us to see McDonalds, Burger King,
Dominoes Pizza, but this McDonald had two things we don’t usually see. First is the McDonald’s delivery via motor
bike. The second is the guard on the
left side behind the cars. What is
unusual is he has a shotgun at the ready.
Many places have had guards with shotguns like this.
Now this isn’t something that you see every day. You go inside to buy a car part, first you
have to get by the guard with the shotgun, and then you have to do your parts
transaction through bars. Those bars are
inside along the counter and we have seen many places like this, including
small connivance stores where you would buy a soda and chips.
We passed by the Guatemalan Constitution Plaza and the Cathedral
of Guatemalan History where the names of thousands of those who forcibly disappeared, during the revolution,
are written on 12 pillars by the fence.
Leaving Constitution Plaza we are making our way through
another part of the City and come to a section where they make and sell piñatas. Check this small selection out; Ninja
Turtles, Batman, the Hulk, and Power Rangers.
Other stores had five times this selections, I think it’s time for a
party.
We are traveling on a bridge over a ravine where these make
shift houses have sprung up. As you can
see, shantytowns have become more sophisticated where they now use cement
blocks instead of cardboard.
Nearly at the hotel, we pass the building for the Ministry
of Defense. You can see several guards,
which were spaced about 40 yards apart, making about 15 guards at their post as
we drove by.
Here is the last statue before reaching our hotel. This lion seems to have the crocodile right
where he wants him.
Tomorrow we are traveling up to Quirigua where we will see
several Mayan artifacts. It is going to
be an early day with us leaving around 7:00 am with about a 10-hour drive.
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