Pre-Columbian, Colombia, Sinu, ca. 800 to 1500 CE. Finely crafted from 14K gold, these crescent shaped earrings were cast via the lost wax (cire perdue) process by the Sinu culture which inhabited the hills and valleys of the middle Cauca River during the centuries prior to Spanish conquest in the 1530s. Presenting an intricate composition of two filigreed (displaying a delicate lacelike openwork continuous weave motif) registers separated by striated bands, the piece is further adorned by a lower fringed band and twin stylized, long-beaked birds, one at each end. On top the suspension ring is thick and substantial. Size: 1.875" W (4.8 cm); Weight: 10.6 grams

Similar examples have been written about by Heidi King of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in "The Art of Precolumbian Gold." King writes, "Ear ornaments are ubiquitous in the personal jewelry of ancient America. South American peoples were especially fond of their use, and, for millennia, they made the ornaments in an enormous variety of pattern, size, and material. Many of the shapes and sizes of these ornaments are so extraordinary that to people of twentieth-century sensibility they seem unwearable. That is not the case . . . The delicate wire work of which they are composed gives the ornaments a light and graceful aspect of great appeal. Indeed they were much admired in ancient times too, for this type of ornament was made in some quantity." Our pair, could be fitted with a modern catch in order to wear on the ears.

King continues, "During the sixteenth century, the Sinu region of Caribbean Colombia, where ornaments of this type have been identified, was very rich in gold, a fact much commented upon by the Spanish conquerors. The desire for gold soon led them to search not only the living but the dead, and the looting of ancient graves began. Gold objects had been important mortuary offerings in the Sinu for centuries." (The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection" edited by Julie Jones. Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1985, p. 164) Goldwork that survived such plundering is understandably rare.

Provenance: private East Coast, USA collection

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#133280

Just a couple of minute casting flaws. The clasps are rigid; however, they could be fitted with a modern catch in order to be worn.