Pre-Columbian, Caribbean, Taino, ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. Carved in the form of a near perfect sphere, this is a stone ball created by the Taino peoples, perhaps for use in a ceremonial ball game. This ball is made from a smooth, mottled, pale-gray stone with light and dark inclusions across the body. Stone spheres like this one are found in burials of the Ciboney and Taino people. Its beauty and perfect form demonstrate the mastery that these people had at pecking stone, shaping it through abrasion, and polishing it to a highly reflective sheen. Ball courts have been found in parts of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, where a Mesoamerican ballgame was played with a rubber ball. It is possible that this stone ball was a votive object or trophy for the ball game. Given its orb-like appearance, scholars have also suggested that it may have been created to symbolize the sun or another celestial body. Size: 5.7" Diameter (14.5 cm)

Stone balls like this one are found in burials of the Ciboney and Taino people. Fascinatingly, these stone balls may tell us something about the people they memorialize. For example, in excavations at Cueva de los Ninos, archaeologists found a group of child burials where the size and age of a child seems to correlate to the size of the ball in the grave (aka, older child, bigger ball).

Provenance: private Cincinnati, Ohio, USA collection, acquired in the 1980s

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#168101

Surface abrasions and chips. Otherwise intact and very good.