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Pre-Columbian, Southern Peru, Inca hinterlands (Chucu), ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. A hand-built terracotta plaque of a trapezoidal form with nicely-formed corners and a lightly-convex verso. The obverse face displays a beautiful program of crowded alpacas or llamas around a central standing or lying down human figure, all decorated with mica-based pigment in sparkling black, red, ocher yellow, and white hues atop the light-brown ground. Plaques like this were placed as offerings to Pacha Mama and Pacha Papa (Mother and Father Earth) to ensure health among the livestock and among human inhabitants of the clan. Comes with attached hook for hanging. Size: 8.25" W x 8.85" H (21 cm x 22.5 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 such as 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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#150806
Condition
Minor nicks and abrasions to peripheries, corners, and both faces, with fading to original pigmentation, otherwise intact and very good. Light earthen deposits throughout.