Lot 89A
Pre-Columbian, Colombia, between Magdalena & Cesar, Chimila, ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. A hand-built terracotta burial urn with an egg-shaped body characteristic of the Chimila style. The lid/head presents an abstract visage with narrow coffee-bean shaped eyes, a petite applied nose adorned with a sizeable ring, applied ears adorned with elaborate ornaments, and pierced marks arranged in linear patterns perhaps representing tattoos above and below the eyes. The egg-shaped body is detailed with angular arms fashioned from long fillets of clay delineated with knobby elbows and six-fingered hands, amusingly diminutive legs bent at the knees with incised toes, an outie belly button, and adorned with a five-stranded necklace of long, incised coils. Size: 14.5" in diameter x 25.5" H (36.8 cm x 64.8 cm)
In the valley of the River Magdalena, ancient rituals related to the preparation of the body of the deceased for its journey to the afterlife involved the practice of secondary burials in urns like this example. According to the curatorial department of the Museo del Oro Banco de la Republica, "There are two different stages in the secondary burial funerary custom: first of all a primary burial takes place, where the corpse is buried for a certain period of time established in the ritual, and then after this, it is exhumed for burial once more in an urn, possibly amidst a great collective ceremony. Urns have been found in well tombs with side chamber, with certain local and regional variations. The chambers contain between three and seventy urns, each holding charred bone remains, large fractured bones, and fragments of skull. Each is accompanied by pots, bowls and goblets, most of which were made exclusively for the dead person, for they show no signs of having been used. Spindle whorls, rollers and axes have also been found."
Scholars argue that the custom of creating burial urns is related to the association of bones with the afterlife. According to Armand Labbe's "Colombia Before Columbus," "There is a widespread belief among many Indians of both Middle and South America that bones are a form of seed, from which new life will spring. Recall the Mexican allegory of the personification of the dual life force, Quetzalcoatl, descending to the underworld to retrieve the bones of mankind to resurrect them to a new life." Labbe continues, "Within the Colombian context, the act of placing bones in cylindrical, phalliform urns, and placing these in the womb-like shaft-and-chamber tomb within the Earth Mother, seems to be an enactment of such beliefs." (Labbe, "Colombia Before Columbus: The People, Culture, and Ceramic Art of Prehispanic Colombia." (1986)
Published in Armand Labbe, "Colombia Before Columbus: The People, Culture, and Ceramic Art of Prehispanic Colombia", New York: Rizzoli, p. 120, fig. 109 (left example)
Provenance: ex-Vaught Collection, Atlanta, GA, USA; published in Armand Labbe, "Colombia Before Columbus: The People, Culture, and Ceramic Art of Prehispanic Colombia", New York: Rizzoli, p. 120, fig. 109 (left example)
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#121029
- Condition: Body repaired from multiple pieces and foot reattached, but all there. Lid repaired from three pieces, but all there. Expected surface wear with chips to peripheries and scuffs here and there commensurate with age.
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