About Resources
Jaina (HAI-na), a small island off the modern-day Campeche and Yucatán mainland in México, is known for elite burial sites containing funerary offerings including these so-named “Jaina-style” figurines. While they’re called Jaina-style, recent archaeological discoveries have confirmed that the figurines were produced across the Yucatán peninsula and were often exchanged (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022a). Jaina was a Maya center occupied from the Late Preclassic through the Terminal Classic periods (ca. 250 BCE–900 CE) (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022b), and the majority of the figures found were created in the Late Classic period (600–800 CE).
These figurines, which often take the dual form of figures combined with whistles and rattles, were a vital part of Maya life, ritual, and funerary practices. They seem to represent ideal “types” rather than individuals, and include depictions of nobles, courtly attendants, priests, performers, ball players, warriors, captives, supernatural beings, and deities (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022b). They were created with molds and details were added by hand, and many contain traces of the original pigments and addition to the original modelers’ fingerprints.