Handicraft Market

In the marketplace of Antigua, colorful sawdust piles hint at the beginning of Semana Santa. Starting at midnight on Holy Saturday, artists all over Guatemala labor through the night designing giant sawdust carpets to blanket the cobblestone roads. These alfombra artists combine Mayan and Catholic iconography into beautiful artistic creations and when the sun rises, the carpets are destroyed as priests and acolytes process over them carrying statues of Christ and the saints. Beautiful and impermanent, just like life.

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Semana Santa Sawdust

In the marketplace of Antigua, colorful sawdust piles hint at the beginning of Semana Santa. Starting at midnight on Holy Saturday, artists all over Guatemala labor through the night designing giant sawdust carpets to blanket the cobblestone roads. These alfombra artists combine Mayan and Catholic iconography into beautiful artistic creations and when the sun rises, the carpets are destroyed as priests and acolytes process over them carrying statues of Christ and the saints. Beautiful and impermanent, just like life.

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