Pre-Columbian, South Coast Peru, Proto-Nazca, ca. 100 BCE. An incredibly rare piece, a pretty textile hummingbird, made from woven plant matter, remarkably preserved for its age and fragile material. The bird has long tail feathers and wings, a narrow, proboscis-like bill, and two raised eyes. Feet hang from below its body. The hummingbird was an important animal in later Nazca cosmology, and is one of the animals represented in the Nazca lines. This may have been something that dangled from a piece of woven textile used to wrap a mummy bundle, and was so well-preserved because of the dry, sandy graves where they buried their dead. Size: 2.8" W x 2.25" H (7.1 cm x 5.7 cm); 3.85" H (9.8 cm) on included custom stand.

From the Paracas period to the proto-Nazca, artwork was dominated by representations of avian forms - often including hummingbirds. Peru is home to 127 different known species of hummingbirds. What people during this time period thought of the animals is not clear - in Mesoamerica, they were associated with war and seen as ferocious, while in the Amazon they were associated with medicine because of their long, probing beaks being similar to the process by which "spirit darts" were taken from the sick and wounded.

Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-Ferdinand Anton collection

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#132534

Small loss to one wing. One eye is slightly unraveled. Otherwise in remarkable condition.