Photographer: Andrea Blumtritt | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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Avimorph pendants are among the most frequently found metal objects in the archaeological region of Gran Nicoya. The inventoried figurine appears to combine the attributes of various creatures (eagle, vulture, hummingbird, toucan). Although the headdress and the oversized tail sections of the object are very flat, they have no additional decoration. Despite its formal similarity to the objects of the Veraguas-Chiriquí group, the figure has several special technical and design features. These include the production in hearth moulding, the limited use of the wax thread technique, the position of the inlets, the small size of the figure, the two-limbed tail, the reduction of the depicted creature to a few attributes and the opposing bars that attach to the body. The elements listed above seem to indicate limited material resources and limited technical skills on the part of the maker. The lack of traces of use on the object indicates that it was used exclusively as a burial object. (Künne 2005)
