Cleveland Museum of Art

Figurine Plaque

Date

c. 300 BCE–200 CE

Medium

hammered and embossed gold-copper alloy

Culture

Peru, South Coast, Paracas, with modern etched enhancement(?)

Department

Art of the Americas

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This small metal ornament represents a human figure wearing a cap, a tunic decorated with bird images, and a necklace of orange-pink spondylus shell sections. Such necklaces are found in Paracas mummy bundles, and are frequently represented in Paracas embroidered images. Spondylus shell does not grow in the cold water off the coast of Peru, and had to be imported hundreds of miles from what is now Ecuador. Virtually all ancient Peruvian cultures treasured spondylus shell for its color and rarity, and as a symbol of fertility. Tumbaga is an alloy made by blending gold with copper, which may give the gold a rosy hue.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.