Large Rio Magdalena Pottery Human Lidded Funerary Urn

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Fine Antiquities, Asian, Ethnographic Art

By Artemis Gallery

Oct 31, 2019

Set Reminder 2019-10-31 10:00:00 2019-10-31 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Fine Antiquities, Asian, Ethnographic Art https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/fine-antiquities-asian-ethnographic-art-4581
Our Halloween Day auction features classical antiquities, ancient and ethnographic art from cultures encompassing the globe, plus fine art. Artemis Gallery info@artemisgallery.com

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• Lot Description
  Pre-Columbian, Colombia, Lower Magdalena, Moskito, ca. 1000 to 1500 CE. A sizable male effigy lidded burial urn, hand-built via the coiling method to hold skeletal remains of a cherished ancestor. The conical lid features a seated male figure with outspread legs, hands raised in a defensive pose, a rotund body with clavicles, hip bones, a spinal column, and delineated genitalia. His angular head presents with a serene, trance-like visage bearing squinting eyes, a curved nose, a closed mouth, pierced ears, and a broad forehead. The walls of the lower vessel body feature abstract winged creatures as well as perforated lug handles. Size (w/ lid): 10.5" W x 31" H (26.7 cm x 78.7 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 lifeforce, 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) New York: Rizzoli, p. 116)
  
  For a stylistically similar example with the human on the lid bearing lowered arms, please see: Labbe, Armand J. "Colombia Before Columbus: The People, Culture, and Ceramic Art of Prehispanic Colombia." Rizolli International Publications, New York, 1986, p. 117, fig. 103.
  
  Provenance: private J.H. collection, Beaverton, Oregon, USA; ex-Artemis Gallery; ex-private J. Smith collection, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
  
  All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
  
  A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
  
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  #149617

  Condition

  Repaired from multiple pieces. Figural lid shows repaired limbs, losses to tips of a few fingers and toes, peripheries of eyelids, and projecting waistline. Repairs to handles and rim of urn body. Expected surface wear with abraded areas commensurate with age. Areas of manganese deposits.
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