The most sophisticated of Classic Maya knappers, makers skilled in the chipping of chert and obsidian to produce stone tools, could create so-called “eccentric” forms—that is, blades with irregular and elaborate shapes used for ceremonial purposes. These artists used a process called pressure flaking, where minuscule pieces of stone could be chipped off the main core with a soft, sturdy material like deer antler to produce intricate shapes at the flint’s edge. This eccentric flint takes the form of a centipede, a creature associated with the earth and whose open jaws symbolize the entrance to the watery underworld.
Archaeologists have excavated caches of eccentric flints from dedicatory deposits at numerous Classic Maya sites; in these contexts, they likely comprised protective offerings that linked civic-ceremonial spaces with the primordial sea. This example pertains to a group of sixteen flints that may have formed a similar cache.
Alyce de Carteret
2025
Further reading
Agurcia Fasquelle, Ricardo, Payson Sheets, and Karl Andreas Taube. Protecting Sacred Space: Rosalila’s Eccentric Chert Cache at Copan and Eccentrics among the Classic Maya. Precolumbia Mesoweb Press, 2020.
