**First Time At Auction**
Pre-Columbian, southern Peru, Inca hinterlands (Chucu), ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. A ceramic plaque of a trapezoidal form with rough peripheries and a concave front face. The front is decorated with eighteen anthropoid figures standing around a pair of abstract zoomorphs in red-orange, sage-green, white, and metallic pigments. Plaques like this example were placed as offerings to Pacha Mama and Pacha Papa (Mother and Father Earth) to protect the health of the livestock and the human inhabitants of the clan. Custom suspension hook attachment included. Size: 5.75" W x 5.25" H (14.6 cm x 13.3 cm)
These plaques were made by smashing large vessels and painting the fragments. They have been discovered in a number of different contexts: beneath wall foundations, in graves, with animal sacrifices, and cached in prominent places in the landscape, like in springs, rock hollows, and atop hills. They are often discovered in pairs, with the painted surfaces placed so that they are facing each other, sometimes wrapped in leaves or even gold sheet. Although the tablet tradition began centuries before, the time period that this one comes from represents the height of the artform, and corresponds to an intensification of agriculture, the rise of interregional trade networks, and the ascendancy of certain important confederations of clans. Into this potent mix, the Inca expanded into the region and the tablet tradition abruptly ended. It seems likely that the Inca, who colonized regions in part by sponsoring local ritual activities, outlawed the creation of religious tablets like this because they saw them as a threat to their trade in sacrificial alpacas, corn beer, and cloth.
Provenance: ex-private Hillberg collection, Sonoma County, California, USA, acquired between 1960 and 1970
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#150560
Condition
Nicks and abrasions to front, peripheries, and verso, with fading to areas of original pigment, and a couple of stable hairline fissures. Light earthen deposits throughout and great traces of original pigment within front face. Old inventory label on verso.