**Originally Listed At $800**

Pre-Columbian, Panama, Diquis, ca. 500 to 1200 CE. A wonderful gold pendant comprised of 90% gold (equivalent to 20K+) depicting three petite lizards facing forward in a prone position. Tiny granules were used to delineate their beady eyes, and their tails rise behind to just about the same height as their raised heads, making for a symmetrical form. According to scholar Dorie Reents-Budet, in Panama and Columbia, gold adornments such as this lizard effigy would have been a totemic icon for a familial unity or community group, intimating the honorable members special powers. (Exploring Art of the Ancient Americas (2012). Weight: 3.3 grams; gold quality: 90% gold (equivalent to 20K+) Size: .5" L x 1" W x .625" H (1.3 cm x 2.5 cm x 1.6 cm)

Pre-Columbian art is well-known for its impressive goldworks. Gold became the preferred material for creating fashionable ornaments sometime after 500 CE replacing jadeite and other green stones from which artists had made impressive jewelry for centuries. Indeed the ancient cultures of the New World created countless gold ornaments and ceremonial objects. Unfortunately, the Spanish conquistadors melted nearly all of these to convert them to gold bars and coins for Spain. Due to this, surviving genuine pre-Columbian gold is rare and highly coveted by collectors.

Provenance: private southern California, USA collection, acquired before 2000

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#145338

Minute casting flaws and losses to peripheries of front legs. Otherwise excellent.