Whistling vessel

Potters from the regions now identified as northern Guatemala and southern Campeche, Mexico, created this distinctive ceramic style, characterized by its exceptionally fine clay, reddish-black slip, and highly polished surface. A supernatural bird perched on one chamber of this double vessel faces a kneeling young man on the other; a third creature climbs up the center. The man’s submissive position suggests he is luring the bird—an avian manifestation of the old god Itzamnaaj—into a trap. A whistle inside the head of the bird sounds when water is poured into the vessel’s opposite chamber.