While many of the gods in contemporary religion are immortal, things were different during the Mayan civilization. Gods were born, lived as infants, reached maturity, and then eventually perished. Only some, the lucky ones, were born anew. To honor these beloved figures, artists created royal cities in the tropical forests of contemporary Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. Totems and ornaments in jadeite, shell, and obsidian connected humans to the supernatural, and artists often signed their names in Mayan hieroglyphs. In this exhibition, 100 rarely seen masterpieces from museums in Europe, the U.S., and Latin America embody the lives of the deities. —Elena Clavarino