Plaque
c. 500–200 BCE
- Medium
- hammered and cut gold
- Classification
- Jewelry
- Dimensions
- Overall: 12.5 x 13.8 cm (4 15/16 x 5 7/16 in.)
- Culture
- Peru, North Coast, Chongoyape(?), Chavín style (900-200 BCE)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Art of the Americas
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
These plaques showing a powerful Chavín deity may come from a group of gold objects found in a lavish tomb in the 1920s. One is shaped as the deity’s fanged head, its fur transformed into sixteen serpents that edge the plaque. On the other, the deity’s visually elusive body also appears: the clawed hands over the chest may clutch a horizontal staff, an emblem of authority; across the waist is a belt that sprouts serpents; and beneath are the legs and feet, which stand atop fanged masks.
