Pre-Columbian Nayarit Head
- Item No.
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Item Details
- Width:
3" Inches - Height:
4" Inches - Period:
Pre-18th Century - Origin:
America
Although West Mexican shaft tomb sculptures appear not to have representations of deities there is evidence that they represent a series of important rites of passage, such as funerals, marriages, and initiations of warriors and chieftains.
Nayarit produced the most colorful sculptures of the West Coast shaft tomb complexes, and the most artistically powerful. The most finely executed sculptures are of human figures. Both sexes are severe in appearance, very heavily adorned and painted with clothing. This Nayarit head would have been part of a full sculpture of the human body and there is the possibility that the head could have been ritually broken.
Because bodily gestures are absent it is difficult to discern what this figure would have represented. Sometimes a large number of single heads such as this one, broken apart from the rest of the ceramic body were found together at excavated sites.
Placed in a shaft tomb, figures such as this one were meant to accompany the deceased in the afterlife, where they would continue to require the symbols of social position that they did when they were living.
Circa, 200 BC -400 AD
3" width x 4" high
Nayarit produced the most colorful sculptures of the West Coast shaft tomb complexes, and the most artistically powerful. The most finely executed sculptures are of human figures. Both sexes are severe in appearance, very heavily adorned and painted with clothing. This Nayarit head would have been part of a full sculpture of the human body and there is the possibility that the head could have been ritually broken.
Because bodily gestures are absent it is difficult to discern what this figure would have represented. Sometimes a large number of single heads such as this one, broken apart from the rest of the ceramic body were found together at excavated sites.
Placed in a shaft tomb, figures such as this one were meant to accompany the deceased in the afterlife, where they would continue to require the symbols of social position that they did when they were living.
Circa, 200 BC -400 AD
3" width x 4" high
