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- by John W Hoopes and +1
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- Maritime Archaeology, Indigenous Studies, Pre-Columbian Art, Ceramics (Archaeology)

"Vienna’s Museum für Vökerkunde holds in its collections a rare sixteenth-century Taíno cotton
belt from Hispaniola (today’s Dominican Republic/Haiti) – one of only two surviving Taíno
cotton artefacts to feature European ‘exotics’, including mirrors, jet beads and brass. This complex
woven structure – a wearable work of art – offers a rare window on to one of the most prestigious
of Taı´no valuables, a personal ornament that literally wrapped the wearer in wealth, status and
spiritual power. The paper charts the original context and use of Taı´no belts, and provides a
detailed account of the Vienna belt’s collection history, its construction and its chronological
placement (radiocarbon-dated using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to AD 1475–1635). The
question of how and when the European materials were incorporated into the belt is explored,
critically engaging the entangled histories of association between the two."

- by Joanna Ostapkowicz
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- Ethnohistory, Archaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, Museum Studies

This article identifies over 20 different species
and/or genera of animals represented in Saladoid
ceramics. It surveys thousands of Saladoid
zoomorphic ceramics in some 15 institutional
collections in the Lesser Antilles and the United
States with the aim of tracking the geographic
distribution of zoomorphs. Not all important Saladoid collections were visited in this survey, with collections in St. Lucia, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico being some notable omissions. In the surveyed collections, strong regional interests
in certain zoomorphs are appreciable in the
distribution of animal and bird images. Chief among
these regional variances are those between the Lesser
Antilles and mainland Saladoid ceramics of the Lower
Orinoco. Regional differences are also discernable
between different groups of islands within the Lesser
Antilles.

- by Joanne Pillsbury
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- Pre-Columbian Art, Pre-columbian studies, Arte Precolombino

Unlike art historians, archaeologists rarely make systematic attempts at attributing artefacts to individual artisans – they stop at the broader category of ‘provenance regions’ or ‘technical styles’. The identification of archaeological individuals, however, allows detailed insight into the organisation of workshops, knowledge transmission, skill, and the tension between individual and social agency. This paper reviews the potential of archaeological science methods to identify individual artisans through the study of material culture. Focusing on the Muisca votive goldwork of Colombia, it combines stylistic, chemical and microscopic analyses to identify idiosyncratic motor habits, material selections and artistic preferences that allow the identification of individual makers and manufacturing events. The results are informative of the internal dynamics between the Muisca technological tradition, religious behaviour and craft specialists. We conclude by outlining the potentials and challenges of science-based archaeological connoisseurship in other contexts.

- by Uribe Villegas María Alicia and +1
- •
- Archaeology, Art History, Colombia, Archaeological Science

Este articulo esta enfocado en el uso de la secrecion psicoactiva del Bufo alvarius. Esta práctica que crece en popularidad actualmente lleva consigo riesgos y controversias, así que para amplificar el conocimiento sobre el uso tradicional de este preparado revisamos sistemáticamente los textos indizados por PubMED, Web of Science y Scopus. Posteriormente hicimos la reseña literaria y buscamos evidencia sobre el uso ritual de anuros en los códices precolombinos y libros de misioneros y conquistadores. Nuestros resultados demuestran que no existe evidencia literaria sobre la tradicion de uso ritual de Bufo alvarius. Los rituales organizados en el ultimo tiempo son productos basados en la invencion neo chamanica. EnglishThis article focuses on the use of Bufo alvariuspsychoactive secretions. This practice that is growing in popularity nowadayscarries with it risks and controversies. To amplify the knowledge about the traditional use of this preparation, we systematicallyreview the t...

- by Elizabeth Mateos Segovia
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- Art, Drugs And Addiction, Ritual, Psychedelics

Chemical analysis of the stunning Muisca metalwork shows that the alloys of copper and gold were specially composed for each offering. Traditionally, the Muisca objects have been collected and studied as works of art. Our authors show that when it comes to drawing understanding of people from the objects they have left us, context is all. The results have much to reveal to metallurgists and students of symbolic metalwork everywhere.

- by Uribe Villegas María Alicia and +1
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- Pre-Columbian Art, Antiquity, Chemical Analysis
- by Adam T Sellen
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- History of Collections, Pre-Columbian Art
- by Dan Hicks
- •
- Archaeology, Museum Studies, Material Culture Studies, Argentina History

This study examines a painted combat scene on a ceramic vessel of the Moche culture (AD 100–800) of the north coast of Peru. The scene portrays a series of distinctly Moche warriors fighting adversaries who feature characteristics (weaponry, ornaments and dress) that are unconventional for Moche visual culture. Correspondences in Recuay pottery and stone sculpture instead support the argument that the enemies were groups from the neighbouring inland valleys and highlands of the Pacific Andean flanks. The analysis of the imagery and its implications illuminate how societies without writing sometimes perceived and configured interaction with other groups — namely, through representations of warfare.

- by George Lau
- •
- Archaeology, Art, Pre-Columbian Art, Ethnicity

Los sellos prehispánicos, o estampaderas, son objetos portátiles que combinan el arte de la escultura (por la talla en relieve de sus rasgos) y la decoración impresa (a través de su huella con pintura o en relieve). Además de usarse directamente para la impresión de diseños en las superficies y la decoración corporal, los sellos poseían símbolos ideográficos por medio de los cuales se podían comunicar mensajes. Los sellos están presentes en varias culturas alrededor del mundo y son parte de la cultura material de los pueblos. En ellos destacan rasgos repetitivos con elementos simbólicos propios de la cultura y elementos relacionados a su medio ambiente.

- by Sofia Paredes-Maury
- •
- Mesoamerican Archaeology, Pre-Columbian Art, Mesoamerica, Ceramic Stamps

Straddling maritime, lowlands, and highland environments, the neighboring Chontal and Huave ethnic groups occupy one of the most diverse landscapes in southern Mexico. For over five centuries this resource-rich territory served as a junction for Indigenous and European colonial encounters, where interethnic and intercontinental political alliances and conflicts came forcefully into play. In addition to leaving material remains scattered throughout the landscape, this political history was encoded in ritualized performances still practiced today in these coastal communities, as well as in their oral traditions and territorial-narratives. Our interdisciplinary research project in the region demonstrates that mountains, caves, lagoons, and the ocean itself served as portals for both animal and human agents, moving and operating in between the physical and spiritual realms. In turn, these animated palimpsests serve as mnemonic devices to recount and reshape social relations and ancestral memory.

- by Darren Longman and +3
- •
- Mesoamerican Archaeology, Pre-Columbian Art, Oaxaca (Anthropology), Oaxaca (Archaeology)

The essay offers a detailed and critical analysis of the most relevant sources and bibliographical contributions to the study of the history of pre-Hispanic art in Colombia, including archaeological and historical, as well as formal and iconographic studies devoted to different cultures and regions of the country. It opens with a critical-theoretical discussion on issues of heritage, colonialism, multivocality, and violence, and closes, after a historical-geographical survey, with some remarks on the continuity of indigenous cultural and artistic forms after the conquest, Afro-descendant influence, and Colombia’s placement in the wider context of pre-Hispanic art in America.

- by Alessia Frassani and +1
- •
- Art History, Colombia, Historiography (in Art History), Pre-Columbian Art

Este artigo relata a questão da análise acerca da cultura asteca, particularmente de sua religiosidade, produto das discussões e das novos aferramentos ligados à História Cultural. Cabe ressaltar a magnitude da cultura para compreender... more

Este artigo relata a questão da análise acerca da cultura asteca, particularmente de
sua religiosidade, produto das discussões e das novos aferramentos ligados à História
Cultural. Cabe ressaltar a magnitude da cultura para compreender os processos de eclosão e
ascensão desta sociedade Pré-Colombiana.

Catalog of exhibition featuring the Easby Collection of Pre-Columbian Art at the Handwerker Gallery in Ithaca, NY. Dudley Easby (The legal Secretary for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and amateur specialistic on Pre-Columbian metalwork) and Elizabeth Easby (a curator of Pre-Columbian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum of Art) developed their collection during the 1950s and 1960s. Our exhibition featured objects from their collection and examined the process by which ancient artifacts entered into personal and institutional collections in the United States. Ithaca College students Gabby Jorio, Ken Robertson, and Sarah McHugh wrote essays for the catalog and co-curated the exhibit with professor Jennifer Jolly.

- by Thilo Rehren
- •
- Pre-Columbian Art
- by richard burger
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- Pre-Columbian Art, Chavin
- by George Lau
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- Andean Archaeology, Pre-Columbian Art, Andean Prehistory (Archaeology), Andes
- by Angelica Afanador-Pujol
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- Art History, Colonialism, Indigenous Knowledge, Pre-Columbian Art
- by Beth Norwood
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- Archaeology, Art History, Ritual, Central America and Mexico
- by richard burger
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- Pre-Columbian Art, Chavin

Resumen En este artículo presentaremos un corpus iconográfico mochica conformado por vasijas de asa estribo, asa lateral y cántaros en los cuales se destacan en relieve personajes muertos involucrados en una danza. Con una metodología de análisis fundamentada en la convergencia de la semántica visual y la etnoarqueomusicología, abordaremos cuestiones referentes al mundo mochica observables en estas vasijas. Entre ellos, discutiremos aspectos ontológicos de la producción sonora, así como el tema de la muerte y el pasaje entre mundos en la sociedad mochica. Además, suponemos que las variaciones iconográficas entre los distintos subtemas de vasijas encontrados en nuestro análisis pueden indicar una distribución regional de este tema, con una producción especializada de los subtemas en valles específicos.

- by Luis M. Castañeda
- •
- History, Archaeology, Art History, Media Studies

Located along the Peruvian coast, the Chimú and Chancay cultures thrived during the Late Intermediate Period. Both the Chimú, situated along the north western coast, and the Chancay along the central coast, utilized aqueducts and... more

- by feng li
- •
- Art History, Pre-Columbian Art

Columbus had a wealth of information, including maps, that he pursued and then used in order to explore the Atlantic in search of The Indies. He not only used fairly accurate maps, but probably had a guide to lead him to already... more

El libro relata la historia del Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino entre 1981 y 2011 a través de las voces de sus propios integrantes, de quienes lo integraron por algún tiempo y de quienes giraron o giran todavía en torno a su quehacer. Parte recordando los tiempos en que se ideó el Museo, para luego recorrer su trayectoria desde los comienzos, durante la dictadura militar, pasando por el retorno a la democracia, hasta la pasada década del Bicentenario de la República. Teniendo como eje del relato la trama interna de treinta y tres de las exposiciones que la comunidad de memoria más valora o recuerda, cada testigo cuenta “su” Museo, “su” exposición, “su” recuerdo, según los diferentes espacios y tiempos en que le tocó actuar. El conjunto de todas esas remembranzas individuales muestra las razones, la complejidad y la ambivalencia de las cosas que sucedieron en la institución a lo largo de estas tres décadas, manteniendo como telón de fondo el acontecer nacional e internacional. Por...

- by José Berenguer
- •
- Museum Studies, Collective Memory, Pre-Columbian Art, Curatorial Practice (Art)

Pantaleon, S. A. Guatemala, 2005.

La antara es un instrumento sonoro frecuentemen-te representado en el arte moche, particularmente asociado a rituales y ceremonias ambientados tanto en el mundo de los vivos (kay pacha) como en el mundo de los muertos (hurin o uku pacha). Con esta contribu-ción pretendemos presentar y discutir un corpus icono-gráfico moche protagonizado por parejas de antaristas. Proponemos un ejercicio interdisciplinario, en lo cual la combinación de la arqueología, la historia del arte, la ar-queomusicología y la etnohistoria nos permite interpre-tar el papel que jugó la antara en las grandes ceremonias moche. Al llevar la discusión más allá del período prehis-pánico, identificamos algunas características simbólicas en las prácticas sonoras de la antara en el mundo moche, que pueden ser interpretadas a la luz de los fenómenos musicales andinos contemporáneos, como las tropas de sikuris.

- by Daniela La Chioma
- •
- Andean Archaeology, Ethnomusicology, Pre-Columbian Art, Andean studies
- by Patrick Hajovsky
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- Aztecs, Pre-Columbian Art, Aztec Art, Colonial Latin American History
- by Antonio Aimi and +1
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- Pre-Columbian Art
- by Antonio Aimi
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- Pre-Columbian Art
- by Andrew D Turner and +1
- •
- Prehistoric Archaeology, Mesoamerican Archaeology, Classic Maya (Archaeology), Maya Archaeology

Análisis de las descripciones de cuatro fiestas de los antiguos mexicanos hechas por Bernardino de Sahagún y Diego Durán. Diferencias, similitudes y contradicciones entre ambas descripciones, para formar una idea de lo que fue la fiesta... more

- by Martha Toriz
- •
- Pre-Columbian Art, Fiestas Religiosas

Las nociones de teatralidad y performatividad relacionadas con la fiesta Tóxcatl dedicada al dios Tezcatlipoca. Al poner bajo la lupa una de las más importantes fiestas prehispánicas, poco a poco se nos develan los significados de sus... more

- by Martha Toriz
- •
- Pre-Columbian Art, Fiestas Religiosas

Research in the northeastern Peten region at Holmul and nearest minor centers shows a complex history of public ritual activity
from the Middle Preclassic onward. Patterns of public architecture, monumental sculpture, iconography, caches, and burials at sites
such as Holmul and Cival document early development of the ideology of Maya kingship. Late Preclassic monumental sculptures
adorning large pyramid temples provide immediate and elaborate metaphors for the ancestral patrons of emerging dynasts. Middle
Preclassic architecture and caches are encoded with the ideological program of the earliest ruling institutions, incorporating themes
of cosmological order; sun, water, and maize deities; the agricultural cycle; and ancestor veneration. All of these early remains are
found in the sacred space of the first “E-group” plazas.

In the work provides a variety description of religion, mythology, military and political history as the Incas and their ancestors. Author is one of the few Indians of Peru, who included in his book original drawings. The text have the... more

- by Serhii Kupriienko
- •
- Andean Region, Bolivian studies, Bolivia, Peru

Previous studies have interpreted greenstone objects referred to as Olmec "spoon" pendants based on hypothetical utilitarian functions that they might have served. This study argues that the unique form of these pendants is actually based on the shell of the wing oyster (Pteria), a nacreous pearl-forming bivalve found on either coast of Mesoamerica. The study of these skeuomorphic recreations of shells sheds light on conceptual relationships between jade and iridescent shell, as well as the ideological motivations behind such material substitutions. Although wing oyster pendants were produced during only the Formative period, the Classic Maya continued to value pearls, formed by such nacre-producing mollusks. This study demonstrates the frequent appearance of pearls in Mesoamerican artwork. Wing oyster pendants constitute an early basis for the ritual interchangeability of jade, shell, and pearl, and the widespread conceptual associations of these valued materials with breath, wind, and ancestors among later Mesoamerican traditions.

The Moche art style is best known through its highly refined ceramic vessels, which frequently accompanied burials. Estimates suggest that there are over 100,000 Moche vessels in museum and private collections worldwide. The vessels, often decorated in a strongly pictorial style uncharacteristic of art of the Central Andean region, offer modern viewers tantalizing glimpses of Moche worldview. The highly consistent and formalized iconography on Moche vessels has been the topic of numerous studies, beginning around the middle of the last century, which have shed light on important aspects of Moche society such as mythology, social organization and ceremonialism. A particularly confounding subset of Moche ceramics portrays figures, including deities, skeletal beings, humans and animals, engaged in sexual acts. While such vessels inevitably arouse the interest of modern museum visitors, to date, relatively few scholarly studies have investigated the emic meanings of Moche sexual vessels and the artistic intent behind their creation. This study focuses on portrayals of an often-depicted Moche deity who, in this instance, copulates with a woman and argues that such images drew upon widespread beliefs concerning the functions of a vital cosmos and the role of ancestors to make potent ideological claims of legitimacy in a richly metaphorical visual landscape.

- by Andrew D Turner
- •
- Iconography, Andean Archaeology, Gender and Sexuality, History of Sexuality
- by Andrew D Turner
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- Iconography, Mesoamerican Archaeology, Anthropology Of Art, Ancient Religion
- by Lisa Trever
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- Andean Archaeology, Pre-Columbian Art, Andean studies, Precolumbian Art
- by George Lau
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- Archaeology, Mimesis, Material Culture Studies, Pre-Columbian Art