Pre-Columbian, Northern Peru, Vicus culture, 200 BCE to 600 CE. A wonderful and unique hollow pottery twin lobed figural vessel with a wonderful design. One lobe has a small room atop it with a jagged roof and a human figure peering out of it as if overlooking something. The desigs on the body are a black negative resist painted in linear, circular, and serpentine designs on an orange-red ground. Size: 5.75" L x 4.4" W x 6.1" H (14.6 cm x 11.2 cm x 15.5 cm)

Vicus ceramics were influenced by the Gallizano and Salinar cultures, north in Ecuador. What was the purpose of a vessel like this? We believe that it and ones like it played a role in funerary culture, as grave offerings, and in feasting, to drink ritual liquids. It may also have been also used in funerary feasting, a practice known from the ancient Andes, where the remains of ancestors were brought out to be feasted with on important days.

Provenance: Ex Don May Collection, 1970s

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#119361

Intact with wonderful remaining pigment.