Photographer: Andrea Blumtritt | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International
Small vessel flute with four finger holes and a conical mouthpiece. The lizard-shaped object has an inflated body to which two massive feet are attached. There is an eyelet in the neck of the figure, which was used for suspension. The head and body of the sculpted ceramic were decorated with bead and knob-shaped overlays. They have an incised and dotted decoration filled with white colour. The object was smoothed, slurried, primed and polished. The bichrome ceramic has a red-brown base colour. The head of the depicted creature is oversized. Social significance: similar sculptures have been interpreted as ritual objects (Bransford 1881; Bonilla et al. 1987), as pendants or as vessel pipes (Lehmann 1913). Symbolic meaning: in the South American lowlands, caimans were considered the "lord of the fish" and the "bringer of manioc" (Bischof 1982: 14). According to Lehmann 1913: El Viejo style. Lothrop (1926) discusses the group under the orange-brown ware. Cultural significance: the group is only known from the south of the Gran Nicoya region. Their artefacts were mainly documented in burials. According to the Lehmann catalogue, the object was found half an hour south of Lagartero. (Künne 2004)
