Cleveland Museum of Art

Crocodile Pendant

Date

1000–1550

Medium

cast gold, modern greenstone

Culture

Panama, Azuero Peninsula, Parita style, 11th-16th century

Department

Art of the Americas

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Of great importance in ancient Panama were beings that combined crocodile features, especially the mouth, with lizard traits, such as the iguana’s head crest. This example also has a back-swept nose, perhaps that of the leaf-nosed bat. The greenstone is a modern replacement for a stone or shell that once completed the crocodile’s body. The greenstone replaced a piece of carved whale bone that was once improperly paired with the pendant.

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