It belongs to the Late Classic period (600-850 A.D.); chronologically manufacture of these censer holders ended around 850, coinciding with the time of the abandonment of the city of Palenque, so the time range for dating this piece ranges between 550 and 850.
It is a fragment of a censer holder of the type recovered in the Las Cruces group from the city of Palenque. The body is tubular with two flat sections placed next to it. It was customary to mold superimposed faces on the front side of the cylinder of this type of censer holder, and they would mainly represent the three protective deities of Palenque: the sun god (GI), the god K'awiil (GII) and the god GIII whose name is not yet known but it is known to be related to aquatic places and rain, and that he participated in the foundation of the World. This censer holder lets us see the anthropomorphic face of a character with the superimposed head of a divinity that cannot be identified because the piece has been broken. Authors like Guillermo Bernal and Marta Cuevas have proposed that the human faces on a group of censers would represent the ancestors of the ruling dynasty, which may be the case with the character represented on this censer holder.
The face of a god was designed on the head of the character and fastened by a frame decorated with tubular jade beads, following the format of the royal Mayan headdresses. These decorations, now lost, were made using a technique known as pastillage, which consisted of adding details and motifs to a basic shape that were worked with small sticks or spatulas made from bone with which they created eyes, hairstyles, earrings, ornaments, etc.
The censer holder has a small circular hole in the back to allow the air to circulate and so that the piece would not fracture with the high temperatures reached during firing due to being so thick.
These censer holders served to braziers where incense was burned during the relevant ceremonies. After performing their duty while "alive," as for the Mayans certain objects were alive, they received special treatment and were buried as offerings in the plinths of the temples.
It belongs to the Late Classic period (600-850 A.D.); chronologically manufacture of these censer holders ended around 850, coinciding with the time of the abandonment of the city of Palenque, so the time range for dating this piece ranges between 550 and 850.
