Black mixed media textile with moth pattern
Image Credit

Unknown Artist, Paracas mantle. South Coast, Peru, About 100 BC - AD 200. Cotton fabric, camelid fiber (probably alpaca) embroidery. H: 48.625 in, W: 88 in. Funds from Alvin & Geraldine Cohen, Mr. & Mrs. Morris A. Long, Tom & Noël Congdon, Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Gary, Hannah Levy, Jan & Frederick R. Mayer, Myron & Louann Miller, Neusteter Institute Fund, Margaret Powers, Mrs. Charles Rosenbaum, Mr. & Mrs. Irving Shwayder, Joyce and Ted Strauss, Mr. & Mrs. Taplin and the Volunteer Endowment Fund; 1980.44

Mayer Center, Department of Arts of the Ancient Americas

Unknown Artist, Paracas mantle. South Coast, Peru, About 100 BC - AD 200. Cotton fabric, camelid fiber (probably alpaca) embroidery. H: 48.625 in, W: 88 in. Funds from Alvin & Geraldine Cohen, Mr. & Mrs. Morris A. Long, Tom & Noël Congdon, Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Gary, Hannah Levy, Jan & Frederick R. Mayer, Myron & Louann Miller, Neusteter Institute Fund, Margaret Powers, Mrs. Charles Rosenbaum, Mr. & Mrs. Irving Shwayder, Joyce and Ted Strauss, Mr. & Mrs. Taplin and the Volunteer Endowment Fund; 1980.44

Overview

The Mayer Center, Department of Arts of the Ancient Americas collection spans nearly four millennia and includes examples of the artistry developed by communities throughout Mesoamerica, Central and South America, and the Caribbean and Southwestern United States. The collection, which began with a few pieces of northern and western Mexican sculpture, grew exponentially in 1968 with the formation of the department. Notable in particular for its vast holdings of Central American ceramics, jade, and stone sculpture, Denver’s collection stands as one of the most comprehensive and expansive examples in the United States.

Art from the ancient Americas continues to be a touchstone for 20th and 21st century artists. While the collection primarily focuses on objects produced prior to arrival of Europeans, the department recently adopted an expanded scope to include contemporary works that engage with the continued legacy of the past. These objects make clear that space, place, and process are as important today as they were for ancient artists.

Highlights

The encyclopedic Costa Rican holdings, largely donated by Frederick and Jan Mayer, are the finest in the United States. Stone sculptures include large, elaborately carved metates (grinding platforms), figural sculptures, grave markers, and mace heads, often carved in the form of fantastic animal heads. Jade axes, imported from Guatemala in ancient times, were carved into elaborate pendants and beads. Hammered gold breastplates and intricate cast gold pendants in the form of animals or costumed human performers advertised the wealth and power of Costa Rican chiefs. Highly sculptural and often brightly painted ceramics are especially abundant in DAM’s Costa Rican collection.

The South American collection incorporates works from Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Generous donors include Mr. and Mrs. Morris Long, Mr. and Mrs. Edward L. Luben, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Mayer, Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Power, and Mr. and Mrs. Edward T. Strauss. Peruvian cultures, including the Chavín, Moche, Nasca, Wari, Chancay, Chimu, and Inca are well represented by ceramics, metalwork, textiles, and carved bone and wood. Ancient Colombian ceramics and gold include Calima, Popayan and Tairona. Chorrera, Bahia, Tolima, and Manteño style ceramic figures and vessels were manufactured in ancient Ecuador. The holdings of intricately carved boldly painted ceramics from Marajó Island in Brazil are especially strong.

Holdings of Mesoamerican art from Mexico and northern Central America include stone sculpture, jade, ceramics, and rare media like carved shell, turquoise mosaic, and obsidian. Important donors include Mr. and Mrs. Horace E. Day, Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay A. Duff, Mr. Douglas R. Hurlburt, Mrs. Lewis K. Land, Mr. William I. Lee, Mr. and Mrs. Morris A. Long, Mr. and Mrs. Edward L. Luben, Mr. and Mrs. Cedric H. Marks, Mr. and Mrs. Raphael J. Moses, and Dr. and Mrs. M. Larry Ottis.

The Olmec, Mesoamerica’s earliest civilization, are represented by jade figures and masks, and ceramic vessels. An elegantly modeled, completely intact Olmec ceramic baby is one of the museum’s most important masterpieces. West Mexican (especially Nayarit and Colima) human and animal ceramic tomb figures are well represented, while holdings from the great city of Teotihuacan are especially comprehensive—ceramic vessels and figurines, incense burners, greenstone figures and masks, and even carved stone mirror backs.

The Maya civilization is represented by several stone relief carvings that portray rulers wearing elaborate regalia. The Maya ceramic collection is also exceptional: rare pre-Classic vessels and figurines, Early Classic cache vessels and blackware containers, and Late Classic painted cylinders and figurines that depict both court life and mythological events.

➤ Martin Building, Level 4

Textile with repeating geometrical shapes

Collection Highlights

Explore objects from the Mayer Center, Department of Arts of the Ancient Americas in our online collection.

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Maize Goddess Chicomecoatl

Maize Goddess Chicomecoatl

Unknown Aztec artist
Central Mexico
Maize Goddess Chicomecoatl, 1400–1519CE
Volcanic stone
Museum Purchase, 1957.31

Chicomecoatl, or Seven Serpent, the Aztec goddess of corn and sustenance was associated with both fertility and agricultural abundance. During the annual Huey Tozozotli festival that honored the corn plant, corn cobs and maize stalks would be bundled and carried by young women to be left at the Temple of Chicomecoatl. Maize, a staple food for Central Mexico, played a prominent role in creation accounts of humans, who were thought to be made of corn dough. Chicomecoatl could, therefore, be understood as the manifestation of earth’s sustenance and of humans themselves.  

Images of the corn goddess feature a tall, rectangular paper headdress known as an amacalli or paper crown, adorned with rosettes at the corners and consisting of multiple tiers and frequently depict her carrying ears of corn in her hands. Here, she holds four, two in each hand. 

Further Reading:

Indian Art of the Americas (Denver Art Museum Quarterly, 1960), Book, Art - History, Denver Art Museum

Aztec Artist, Central Mexico. Maize Goddess Chicomecoatl, 1400–1519. Volcanic Stone, 17 1/4 x 9 1/8 x 3 in. Museum Purchase, 1957.31.

Water Channel Beaker

Water Channel Beaker

Unknown artist
Sicán (Lambayeque) or Chimú, Peru  
Double-walled Beaker with Mythological Scene 
About 800–1375 CE
Hammered silver 
General acquisition funds, 1969.302

In the ancient Andes, the drinking of maize beer played a prominent role in ceremonies. Sixteenth-century accounts of the Inka Empire tell how a toast between two parties could seal a contract, cement political alliances, or invoke the blessing of the goddess Pachamama when poured on the ground. Although commonly associated with the Inka empire, examples of drinking cups can be traced back to earlier cultures such as these tenth-century examples. 

This silver aquilla (cups made of precious metals) depicts a complex visual narrative carefully hammered into the vessels’ surface. The intricacy of the design and the purity of the metal suggests that this vessel was intended to accompany a royal personage in the afterlife as libation vessel. The rim includes a shallow projection or pouring spout.  Joanne Pillsbury and Carol Mackie’s recent material and iconographic analyses of the object suggests that this vessel as well as another in our collection (1969.303) were designed as a pair and manufactured in the same Lambayeque workshop. 

This object used to be called the Water Channel Beaker, so named because of the long thin conduit filled with marine imagery that encircles a large part of the vessel, prominently depicts a splayed leg female figure wearing a plumed headdress and framed by a lobed cartouche. A row of supernatural entities populates the upper register; architectural enclosures, hunting scenes, and a grove of trees appear around the center of the vessel. 

Further Reading: 

King, Heidi. Rain of the Moon: Silver in Ancient Peru. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 2000:34-35.

Mackey C, Pillsbury J. Cosmology and ritual on a Lambayeque beaker. Art and Archaeology. Essays in Honor of Frederick R. Mayer. 2013:115-141.

Pillsbury J, Mackey CJ. Lambayeque Silver Beakers: Further Considerations. Ñawpa Pacha. 2020 Jul 2;40(2):223-47.

Stratton-Pruitt, Suzanne L. Journeys to New Worlds: Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Art in the Roberta and Richard Huber Collection. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 2013: 204.

Young-Sánchez, Margaret. Pre-Columbian Art in the Denver Art Museum. Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial Art at the Denver At Museum. 2003: 74-75.

Unknown artist (Sicán (Lambayeque) or Chimú, Peru), Water Channel Beaker, 800–1375 CE. Hammered silver, 6 x 5 ½ in. General acquisition funds, 1969.302

Breastplate with Supernatural Crocodile

Breastplate with Supernatural Crocodile

Breastplate
Parita style
About A.D. 1150–1400
Central Panama, Azuero Peninsula
Gold alloy
Department acquisition funds, 1965.196

Hammered gold breastplates from central Panama are decorated with intricate embossed images of supernatural beings with claws, bared teeth, and serpentine appendages. Closely similar beings, often in dynamic poses, are painted on polychrome pottery from the same region. Long known collectively as the Crocodile God, such creatures actually combine traits from many creatures, including iguanas, sharks, and even deer.

The highest ranking members of ancient Panamanian society were buried with numerous human attendants and lavish offerings. These included polychrome pottery and gold ornaments such as helmets, breastplates, wrist guards, pendants, and beaded necklaces. Other valuable materials placed in graves include turtle carapaces, stingray spines, whale teeth, shark teeth, boar tusks, carved bone, agate, quartz, emerald, and serpentine.

Unknown artist, Azuero Peninsula, Central Panama. Breastplate with Supernatural Crocodile, 400–1000 CE. Gold alloy, 5 ¼ inches. Department acquisition funds, 1965.196.

Seated Baby Figure

Seated Baby Figure

Seated Figure
Olmec
About 1000–500 B.C.
Mexico, Guerrero, Zumpango del Rio
Earthenware with slip and pigments
Funds from various donors, 1975.50

The Olmec created Mesoamerica’s first civilization. Their sites are concentrated in the warm, humid Gulf Coast region of Mexico, although Olmec architecture, sculpture, and cave paintings are also found in central Mexico. Portable Olmec style objects have been discovered as far south as Costa Rica. The Olmec were masterful sculptors, carving massive stone monuments such as ruler portrait heads and thrones (also known as altars). They also created smaller scale works in jade and ceramic. This earthenware figure is easily recognized as Olmec by the elongated head, slanted eyes, and downturned lips. The body is sexless, with smooth, rounded limbs and small hands and feet. The pose is elegantly casual, with a slightly cocked head and asymmetrical arm and leg positions.

Unknown Olmec artist, Zumpango del Río, Guerrero, Mexico. Seated Baby Figure, 1000–500 BCE. Slip-painted ceramic, 14 x 12 ½ x 9 ¼ in. Denver Art Museum Collection: Funds from various donors, 1975.50.

Urn

Urn

Funerary Urn
About A.D. 400–1300
Brazil, Marajó Island
Earthenware with colored slips
Gift of Frederick and Jan Mayer, 2006.14

The people of Marajó Island buried their dead (either complete bodies or secondary burials of cleaned bones) in ceramic urns.  The largest urns, such as this, have thick walls and required considerable skill to fire.  Opposite one another on the jar’s neck are large modeled faces with heavily lidded eyes, a short protuberant nose, and a chinlike element that extends onto the vessel shoulder.  Heavy black lines enhance the facial features, and define arms and hands on the vessel below the faces.  A womblike element centered on the belly suggests a feminine identity for the urn.  Small human figures with protectively raised arms are modeled on the jar’s neck, between the large faces.  

The urn may have been housed above ground or partially buried in a roofed cemetery shelter, allowing descendants or others to view the painted and modeled imagery and to handle or make offerings to the human remains.  This constellation of images and practices is suggestive of rebirth, with the bones – sheltered and nourished within an earthen ancestral being – serving as seeds for new life.

Unknown artist, Urn. Marajó Island, Brazil, 400–1500 CE. Ceramic with colored slip. 36 x 30 in. Gift of the collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer, 2006.14. 

Tasseled Tunic

Tasseled Tunic

By 1200 CE, the Kingdom of Chimor controlled nearly 800 miles of territory including Peru’s north coast, the most fertile region in the Andes. Using sophisticated irrigation techniques, the Chimu oversaw an extensive regional economy that traded its agricultural bounty, plus key goods such as salt and cotton, in return for luxury items: spondylus shells, cochineal dye, and precious metals. Known for the monumental adobe architecture of their capital city Chan Chan, the Chimu amassed great wealth and converted large compounds into veritable museums. 

Among Andean communities, a textile as extravagantly ornate as this one would have been considered an object of prestige. Its intricate structure consists of an openwork, knotted net made of thin cotton cords. The vertical cords also serve as warps on which brilliantly dyed camelid fiber (probably alpaca) yarns are woven. Elaborate knotted tassels, attached separately to the surface, hide small embroidered medallions set in an alternating pattern. Only when movement causes the tassels to rise can the pattern be seen. In other words, this extraordinary garment captures the kinetic, sensory aspect of Andean adornment that we can never fully appreciate in a museum setting.
 
—VL
 

Unknown Artist, Tasseled Tunic. Chimú, Peru, 900–1400 CE. Knotted network and tapestry with applied tassels, cotton and camelid fiber. 21 x 53 x 2 ½ in. Neusteter Textile Collection, Gift In Memory of Richard Levine; 2011.358

Incised Celt with Portrait of Female Ruler

Incised Celt with Portrait of Female Ruler

This object preserves one of the earliest known portraits of a Maya queen. Celts, both plain and incised, formed an essential part of Maya royal costume. They hung down from a belt around the waist in sets of three, clinking against each other as the ruler walked. Very few incised examples survive, and those that do picture male rulers. 

Like her male contemporaries, she wears an elaborate headdress, and a string of beads encircles her face. In addition, her dress includes a jade net skirt and a shawl, knotted at the base of her neck, that covers her torso. The combination of garments underscores her femininity and modesty. These eventually became hallmarks of Late Classic period (600–850 CE) portraits of royal women.

The style and syntax of the inscription, translated by Matthew Looper and Yuriy Polyukhovych, dates the object to about 400 CE and identifies our subject as Lady “Bird” Star, beloved of the gods. The text further alludes to an illustrious lineage linked to the dynasties of Tikal and Caracol. 

—VL

Maya artist, Ucanal, eastern Petén, Guatemala. Incised Celt with Portrait of Female Ruler, 400. Greenstone, 5 × 2½ × ¼ in. Gift of the Collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer, 2017.237.

Department Staff

Victoria I. Lyall, Frederick and Jan Mayer Curator of Arts of the Ancient Americas

Victoria I. Lyall is the Frederick and Jan Mayer Curator of Arts of the Ancient Americas at the Denver Art Museum. She received her bachelor's in anthropology and history of art from Yale University, her master's in art history from Tulane University, and her PhD in pre-Columbian art history from UCLA. Victoria worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for 10 years and during her tenure participated in organizing the exhibitions Lords of Creation (2005), Olmec (2010), and Contested Visions (2011). In 2012, she co-curated the NEA- and NEH-funded Children of the Plumed Serpent. From 2014-2017, she taught museum studies as part of San Francisco State University’s master's program in museum studies. Most recently, she is co-editor and contributor to ReVisión: A New Look at Art of the Americas (Hirmer, 2020), editor of Murals of the Americas (2019), and co-editor and contributor to Children of the Plumed Serpent (2012).

Paula Contreras, Curatorial Assistant

Paula Contreras is the Curatorial Assistant of Arts of the Ancient Americas. They received a bachelor’s degree in art history and minor in anthropology and Latin American studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a master's in art history from Texas Christian University. With a background in anthropology and Mesoamerican studies, they focus on issues of gender, cultural practices, and textile art. Before joining the Denver Art Museum, Contreras held positions at the McNay Art Museum and Dallas Museum of Art.

Manuel Ferreira, Interpretive Specialist

Manuel Ferreira joined the Denver Art Museum (DAM) in 2022 as an Interpretive Specialist. He plays a key role in developing and implementing creative, accessible and engaging interpretive experiences and materials in exhibitions for visitors. Ferreira specializes in visitor research and the interpretation of Arts of the Ancient Americas, Latin American Art and Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art, Arts of Oceania, and Arts of Africa, contributing to both permanent collection installations and temporary exhibitions.

Ferreira has a deep passion for creating inclusive, engaging and culturally sensitive interpretations that connect audiences with art and history. His professional trajectory includes roles in curation, collections management, exhibition design, education and visitor research at art, anthropology, academic and natural history institutions. Before joining DAM, Ferreira served as Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Logan Museum of Anthropology at Beloit College, where he led students and faculty through projects that explored complex social topics like migration and queer identity. At professional conferences, he regularly speaks on such topics as increasing representation in the field, including diverse perspectives and experiences in museum-community work and partnerships, and the evolving role of museums in contemporary society.

Ferreira received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from Lawrence University and earned a Master of Arts in anthropology with a concentration in museum and heritage studies from the University of Denver.

Georgi Kyorlenski, 2024-2026 Mayer Center fellow

Georgi Kyorlenski holds a Ph.D. in Archaeology from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. His research on the Inca Civil War (1527-1532) integrates art historical, archaeological, historical, and linguistic methodologies. Georgi’s work reveals the importance of alliance building as a core mechanism of the Inca Empire through the lens of the catastrophic war of succession that paved the way for European invasion in the Andes. At the DAM, he will research the Andean collections and in particular, the Inca objects related to state-sponsored feasting practices.

Research & Symposia

Scholars wishing to access the Mayer Center for Ancient and Latin American Art department collections and/or library holdings must contact the Mayer Center well in advance of a visit. Due to ongoing construction and renovation of the galleries, six to eight weeks notice is recommended. If approval for study is granted, the collection/library will be made available as the staff of the DAM's schedule permits. Please plan accordingly. Please contact mayercenter@denverartmuseum.org for more information.

The Mayer Center Fellow Program

This program is designed to support scholarly research related to the museum’s collections of Art of the Ancient Americas art and Latin American art and to provide curatorial experience.

Symposia

Over the last two decades, the Mayer Center’s annual symposium and accompanying publication provides a forum for ongoing research being conducted throughout the region. The 19th annual symposium held in November 2019, El Mar Caribe: The American Mediterranean, featured scholars working in and around the Caribbean basin. A volume of the presentations is forthcoming.

The Ancient Americas’ most recent publication, Murals of the Americas, includes essays from the 2017 Mayer symposium. Topics included work from the American Southwest, Mesoamerica, and contemporary murals. Presenters considered the role of large-scale art inscribed on walls in sparking dialogue, furthering learning, or inspiring viewers. The papers in this volume, like the collection, span from the earliest civilization in Mesoamerica to the present, and include the perspectives of artists Judith Baca and Ed Kabotie as well as those of well-regarded academics. Each chapter discusses how murals function as a powerful tool for the expression of political, social, or religious ideas across diverse time periods and cultures.

Exhibition History

Recent exhibitions organized by the Mayer Center, Department of Arts of the Ancient Americas department include:

Woman giving a lecture at the Sharp Audorium

The Mayer Center

Art of the Ancient Americas forms part of the Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Ancient and Latin American Art. Founded in 2001 through the generosity of Frederick and Jan Mayer, the Center’s purpose is to increase awareness and promote scholarship in these fields by sponsoring academic activities including symposia, fellowships, research projects, conservation, and publications.

Featured Articles

Dive deeper into the stories behind some of the artworks in the collection by reading through articles written by our curators, conservators, and museum staff.