South America, Chile, Atacama Desert, ca. 7000 to 5000 BCE. A rare limestone carving from the pre-ceramic era, in a human or bird-like form, from the Atacama Desert plateau west of the Andes extending south of the Peru-Chile border - possibly the oldest desert on our planet and known to be the driest non-polar locale of the globe with an average rainfall of only .6" (15 mm) per year! Though sparsely populated, some of its valleys have been populated for millennia. This stone carving is a very rare find! Size: 3.5" W x 5.25" H (8.9 cm x 13.3 cm); 7.45" H (18.9 cm) on included custom stand.
Ancient idols like this one, that reduce anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures to a simple collection of shapes and lines, are considered some of our oldest abstract art. They fascinate us today in part because they hint at a belief system and cosmology that we can no longer access or understand. Instead, we guess at the meaning - are they fertility charms? Representations of old gods? Were they made to be carried as apotropaic charms, or simply to be placed in tombs? Their mute figures raise more questions than they answer.
Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-private Hans Juergen Westermann collection, Germany, acquired in the 1950s
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#141258
Condition
Small, ancient chips and nicks from surface commensurate with age. Deposits on surface, especially on the "head".