Pre-Columbian, Peru, Chavin, 900 to 200 BCE. A striking, thick-walled black stone cup with an incised relief image of highly abstract mythological beings around its body. Red cinnabar gives color to the lower profile areas of the relief carving, as well as the interior, which is conical in form, giving us a clue to the type of tool that made it - a drill, used to remove the sides but not able to form squared-off edges. The cup is flat on the base. This incised relief style is classically Chavin, the culture that is often compared to the Olmec of Mesoamerica for creating the first regional design style. When first made, the incised designs would have been entirely filled in with red. Size: 2.85" W x 3.5" H (7.2 cm x 8.9 cm)

The relief images are powerful and fierce, perhaps best understood if seen as a long, flattened image: two faces, each composed of distinctive bordered panels with reverse symmetry, one a feline, and one a serpent. The feline has three panels, two eyes above large fangs, and one in the center in the form of a large nose and mouth. The serpent is two panels, again eyes over fangs, with a v-shape to the lower jaw that gives it its serpentine look.

The feline and the serpent are the two most represented animals in the Chavin pantheon of mythological zoomorphic creatures. The Chavin lived in the northern Highland Andes, and their capital, Chavin de Huantar, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the center of Chavin de Huantar is a massive, flat-topped pyramid, surrounded by lower platforms. Between 1200 and 500 BCE the pyramid space was used for religious ceremonies. The Old Temple, constructed very early in the history of the site, consists of a series of passageways built around a circular courtyard. Within were carved stone monuments showing jaguars, serpents, and other figures with transformative and/or anthropomorphic figures. At the very center was a towering stone stela depicting an anthropomorphic figure with a jaguar head, a human body, and eyebrows and hair made of snakes. This was Lanzon, the chief deity of Chavin. Researchers believe that worshippers ingested hallucinogenic drugs were led in the dark through the labyrinthine passageways before entering the central courtyard and coming abruptly face-to-face with the snarling features of the god.

Provenance: private Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA collection, from private 1950s South America collection

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#124091

Light surface wear from age and handling, with some remaining red pigment. Old accession stickers are on the base.