"Horned" Male
100 BCE–300 CE
- Medium
- earthenware with colored slips, black burial deposits
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- Overall: 41.5 x 24.9 x 24.7 cm (16 5/16 x 9 13/16 x 9 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- West Mexico, Colima, Comala style
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Art of the Americas
- Credit line
- Fiftieth anniversary gift of the Womens Council in honor of the Museum's Seventy-fifth anniversary
- 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
This figure’s concentrated, otherworldly expression is emphasized by the hornlike element strapped to its forehead. This "horn" may be the spire of a conch shell, which comes from water and, therefore, refers to fertility—likely an important ritual concern of West Mexican chiefs. The element also could represent the "horn of power" worn in some areas of the world by shamans, the spiritual leaders and healers of small, nonindustrial societies.
