Description:

Pre-Columbian, Costa Rica, Guanacaste / Nicoya region, ca. 200 to 600 CE. A superb jade celt pendant, with gorgeous coloration and near pristine condition, featuring an abstract anthropomorphic-bird hybrid figure or axe god. The elongated / spatulate shaped blade has a blunt and unsharpened edge, as this is primarily a ceremonial adornment. The handle is string cut to form the rectangular arms crossed over the chest with delineated fingers, triangular beak, and drilled cupule eyes under a tiered headdresses - perhaps representing a shaman undergoing transformation. Just below the eyes is a drilled suspension hole. The verso has a slight midrib that runs the length, but polished smooth and nearly flat near the blade tip. This slight ridge is likely from a technique used when hewing this stone segment out from a larger piece; string cutting vertically from each side until the it can be broken away. Size: 8.9" L x 1" W (22.6 cm x 2.5 cm)

The value of jade in the Pre-Columbian world lay in its symbolic power; scholars believe its color was associated with water and vegetation. Costa Rica, along with Mesoamerica, is one of the two regions where jade was extensively carved in the Pre-Columbian world. The earliest example of worked jade, a pendant excavated from a burial site on the Nicoya Peninsula, dated to the mid-first millennium BCE. It appears that jade continued to be carved into personal ornaments, usually depicting anthropomorphic deities or animals such as birds, monkeys, crocodiles, serpents, or frogs, until approximately 700 CE when gold became the favored material to fashion such ornaments.

Provenance: private Dallas, Texas, USA collection, originally acquired in Costa Rica from 1997-1998; ex-private Costa Rican collection

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#185702
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  • Condition: Choice. Intact and excellent. Natural striation / brown vein on the carved tip. Light mineral deposits within recessed cavities and drilled suspension hole.

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September 19, 2024 8:00 AM MDT
Louisville, CO, US

Artemis Fine Arts

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