Bead with Human Face

Costa Rica, Pre-Columbian

300 BC - AD 600

  • Titles Bead with Human Face (Descriptive)
  • Medium jade
  • Dimensions 1 1/4 x 1/2 x 5/8 in. (3.2 x 1.3 x 1.6 cm)
  • Credit Line Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John B. Chandler, AFI.43.1981
  • Work Type bead
  • Classification Objects

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Anthropomorphic, earthenware vessel with narrow mouth and flared rim, has shape of seated female with arms resting on abdomen. Brown clay body under black slip. Facial features, breasts, and umbilicus of appliquéd balls of clay; curved clay rolls form arms and fingers. Feet emerge from body of vessel; female genitalia articulated as raised groove. Otherwise round vessel has unusually projecting shoulder blades, perhaps indicating physical deformity of the back.
Mold made pendant in the form of a male figure
A youthful and strong figure standing proudly on long slightly bent legs, displaying a trophy head in the right-hand and holding a double-headed axe in the left, with peetorals indicated and wearing geometrically carved bark armor around the waist, the striated, parted coiffure forming a long plait down the neck in grey volcanic stone.
Fine line graving of a classical Maya noble in a seated, cross-legged position from the Lsle of Jaina. The face shows pear shaped eyes with the pupil at the front and a slightly hooked nose and the down turned mouth. He wears a turban and round ear ornaments. There is a single bead on his chest and he wears a heavy girdle tied in back. His right hand rests on his knee with the fingers bent in the classic position. The engraving has been filled with red.