Currently not on view

Carved yuguito

y1983-17

Yugitos (small yokes) are perhaps the most enigmatic class of ballgame-related paraphernalia, as their practical use remains uncertain. The gaping vacant sphere most likely is not a cavity meant for inlays but simply a form that suggests the absence of an eye; the other eye is swollen shut. Curiously, the otherwise human face features a split, serpentine tongue, perhaps indicating that the brutalized ballplayer depicted here was a supernatural opponent. Geometric incised designs on the back of the granite sculpture resemble those on Tlatilco and Olmec style pottery, suggesting a date from that era.

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Information

Object Number

y1983-17

Medium

Dark gray granite

Dates

1000–500 B.C.

Dimensions

h. 13 cm., w. 13 cm. (5 1/8 x 5 1/8 in.)

Culture

Olmec style

Credit Line

Museum purchase, gift of the Wallace S. Whittaker Foundation, in memory of Wallace S. Whittaker, Yale Class of 1914

Place Made

North America, Mexico

Signatures

Carved into proper left edge of head: X. V. DEN...

Type

ceremonial objects, protective wear

Subject

ball courts, heads, faces, ball games

Materials

granite

Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957), Mexico City [1]. By February 13, 1972, Jay C. Leff (1925-2000), Uniontown, PA [2]; 1983, sold by Judith (Small) Nash, Works of Art, Inc., New York, to the Princeton University Art Museum. Notes: [1] According to Judith (Small) Nash. Miguel Covarrubias, also known as José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud, was a Mexican artist, ethnologist, and art historian. [2] According to Michael Kan, Pre-Columbian Art of Mesoamerican from the Collection of Jay C. Leff (Allentown: Allentown Art Museum, 1972), cat. 19, ill.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/25338890

Michael Kan, Pre-Columbian Art of Mesoamerica from the collection of Jay C. Leff (Allentown, Allentown Art Museum, 1972)., cat. no. 19

2631 1972

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1085942

Katheryn M. Linduff, Ancient Art of Middle America (Huntington, Huntington Galleries, 1974)., cat. no. 13

2618 1974

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13186418

Gerald Berjonneau, Emile Deletaille, and Jean-Louis Sonnery, Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica: Mexico-Guatemala-Honduras (Boulogne: Editions Arts, 1985)., cat. no. 31 (illus.)

2538 1985

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/16313916

Gérald Berjonneau, Emile Deletaille, and Jean-Louis Sonnery, Art précolombien Mexique, Guatemala (Paris: Editions Arts 135, 1985).

2969 1985

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/14244748

Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 55 (illus.)

1899 1986

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774731

Mary E. Miller, "The Ballgame," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 48, no. 2 (1989): 22–31., p. 29, fig. 12

2789 1989

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/34103154

Michael D. Coe et al., The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership (Princeton, Princeton University Art Museum, 1996), cat. no. 136, p. 238 (illus.)

2564 1996

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/49029226

E. Michael Whittington, ed., The sport of life and death: the Mesoamerican ballgame (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001)., cat. no. 13

2942 2001

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/191864564

Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 172 (illus.)