Celt with Deity
1000–300 BCE
- Medium
- stone
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- Overall: 32.2 x 14 x 11.5 cm (12 11/16 x 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Mesoamerica, Mexico, Olmec
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Art of the Americas
- Credit line
- Gift of the Hanna Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This ceremonial object has the head of a deity and a body shaped like an axe blade (celt) used to clear land for agriculture. The flared mouth, toothless gums, and fangs are typical of Olmec supernatural beings. The meaning of the body's "four-dots-and-a-bar" motif is unclear, but it sometimes appears in depictions of plants. The deity, then, seems to be associated with fertility.
