Photographer: Andrea Blumtritt | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International
Small, hollow ceramic piece depicting an anthropomorphic skull. The object has a rattle ball. It was smoothed, slurried, primed and painted. The primer and paint are very heavily eroded. The sculpted pottery had a white-brownish base colour, which was painted black-brown and red. The skull-shaped object has a large nose, rectangular eye sockets and an open, rectangular mouth. The eyebrows and ear ornaments were particularly emphasised. The face was painted with black-brown and red dots. The mouth was decorated in red. There are several vertical indentations in place of the lips. Symbolic significance: Hartman (1907) and Ferrero (1975) depict skull-like miniatures made of stone. They also come from the Gran Nicoya region and are interpreted as club heads. However, in contrast to the inventoried object, the archaeologica have two opposing openings located at the top and base of the skull. According to Lothrop 1926: Nicoya polychrome ware figurine. (Künne 2004)
