Seated serenely, with eyes closed and hands resting on knees, this male figure gives an impression of inward contemplation or trance. Statues such as this have been found in shaft tombs surrounding the bodies of the dead, as if keeping watch. Indeed, these so-called slab figures from the Middle Cauca Valley likely represent ritual specialists undergoing spiritual transformation (see also M.2007.146.5 and .268). Many cultures of the Cauca region believe that such individuals are able to cross the cosmological divide between the living and the dead. Upon death, souls are thought to wander, causing harm to their living family members. Ritual specialists—or in this case, a ceramic substitute—negotiate that interaction, protecting the family and ushering the soul beyond the grave.
Unusually, this figure retains a nose ring, although it may not be the original one. As these works make their way into museum collections from looters via middlemen and private collectors, dealers, and the art market, it is not unusual for the far more valuable and easily transported gold jewelry to be removed from the less profitable and more cumbersome ceramic sculptures. However, this nose ring’s shape and coppery tone are consistent with an early dating. Feathers may once have been tucked into the row of holes along the figure’s forehead.
