Cleveland Museum of Art

Figural Pendant

Date

1–800 CE

Medium

gold, cast and hammered

Culture

Isthmian Region (Colombia), Tolima

Department

Art of the Americas

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Colombia's Tolima region is justly famous for arrestingly abstracted figures like this one, among the largest of its kind. Such figures, worn as necklace pendants by chiefs and other elites, seem to be based on the human form. But they also incorporate animal features, often an upturned, bifurcated tail sometimes compared to that of a serpent and large, angled head appendages that may refer to animal ears or even insect antennae. Pendants in the form of figures with X-shaped bodies are an iconic Tolima type.

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