NEW WORLD ANTIQUITIES

In the fields, stream beds, limestone pits and lake bottoms of Mexico, Guatemala and British Honduras, archaeologists continue to reap a rich harvest of the New World's antiquity. There was a time when the artifacts, pottery, votive offerings and idols reclaimed from the soil were handed over to children as playthings or used as targets for Sunday pistol practice. But today archaeologists are alert to seize them as invaluable clues to mysterious, pre-Columbian cultures that send their roots back some 30 centuries. And art lovers now view them as art expressions of rare value.

One of the most exciting finds in the past two decades is the 20-in.-tall statuette of the Mayan Rain God Chaac (see color), one of two discovered by a Carnegie Institution expedition in the ruined Yucatan city of Mayapan, and now on view at Mexico City's National Museum. Probably sculpted from clay in the 14th century, the prong-nosed Chaac is seen here in full regalia, with all his accouterments worked out in the full complexity of the Mayan style.

Chaac was the most important god in the everyday life of the corn-growing Mayans. Betokening his rain-producing powers, he is shown with two pots for water, one adorned with corn symbol. Beneath his ojo de serpiente (eye of the snake) headdress, he presents a double aspect: one side still wears the now-muted green of lush cornfields; the other is the weathered brown of drought.

A lesser culture, that of the primitive peoples in the little-explored state of Guerrero on Mexico's Pacific watershed, is a new favorite among collectors. On show this week at Manhattan's Andre Emmerich gallery was the first exhibit of art objects from the Mezcala River basin. So little regarded that until a few years ago they could be bought for as little as $15, choice examples now bring up to $500 and over.

In contrast to later-day Mayan works, writes Mexican Painter-Archaeologist Miguel Covarrubias, Mezcala objects are "highly stylized and schematic, and their coarse, vigorous character makes them readily identifiable" (see cut). Probably sculpted between 200 B.C.-800 A.D., surviving examples of Mezcala workmanship are small (many only 2-in. to 7-in. tall) and were made from the same hard stone used for chisels. But primitive as are the small masks, figures and votive animals, they pass the test of good sculpture. Even magnified in size, they keep their proportion and acquire a monumental gravity.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.