Cleveland Museum of Art

Container in the form of a Sacrificer

Date

770–890 (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)

Medium

wood and red pigment (cinnabar)

Culture

Peru, Middle Horizon, Wari Culture

Department

Art of the Americas

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This container assumes the shape of a magnificent, feline-headed, supernatural sacrificer who draws a knife across the throat of the human it holds in its lap. Severed human heads hang from the feline's belt and dangle by the trachea at the back of its headdress. Sacrifice had a place in Wari religious practice, probably as an unusual and exceptionally precious offering made to entice the benevolence of cosmic forces. Indeed, colonial-period Andean people believed that death was a prerequisite for the renewal of the world. Traces of cinnabar, a toxic mercuric sulfide, are visible on the container's surface.

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