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HOME :
Pre-Columbian Art :
Art of Costa Rica : Guanacaste-Nicoya Terracotta Vessel Featuring a Serpent Motif
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Guanacaste-Nicoya Terracotta Vessel Featuring a Serpent Motif - PF.3226
Origin: Guanacaste, Nicoya, Costa Rica
Circa: 1200
AD
to 1550
AD
Dimensions:
10" (25.4cm) high
Catalogue: V15
Collection: Pre-Columbian
Style: Guancaste-Nicoya
Medium: Terracotta
$9,000.00
Location: United States
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| Description |
In bright reds, oranges and browns as
resplendent as a setting sun, a wide staring eye
stares at us from underneath a flaming crown.
This fantastic creature has bird, serpent and
iguana characteristics, which most probably
represent a great mythological story. Encircling
the top band are step motifs that may resemble
jigsaw puzzle pieces to us. To the Ancient Costa
Ricans, though, they may have been rich with
symbolism and cosmological beliefs. The cross-
hatching on the serpent's body is divided into
four areas with different colors of paint
terminating into a rattle, perhaps a ‘rattle snake,’
at the end of the body. Feathers appear to grow
forth from the rattle and iguana legs sprout forth
from the upper body. The movement of the
creature is aquatic at one time and terrestrial at
the next blink of our eyes. Surely, during ritual,
this bright creature received reverence and
prayers to appease the deity it represented, and
the shaman or nobility who drank from this lively
globular vessel must have received veneration, as
well.
- (PF.3226)
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