Cleveland Museum of Art

Plate with Supernatural Being

Date: 900–600 BCE
Medium: stone (probably steatite [soapstone])
Culture: Central Andes, north coast, probably Jequetepeque Valley, Cupisnique people
Department: Art of the Americas
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art

This plate is carved with a feline supernatural sacrificer who holds a severed human head in its clawed paws. The diagonal clusters of plant foliage at the figure’s shoulders and hips imply that death is tied to the earth’s fertility, one being a precondition for the other. The figure, therefore, may be an apotheosis of the life-death cycle. The supernatural figure on this small plate may be an apotheosis of the life-death cycle.

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