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Collections

Stingray Pedestal Plate1300–1520

On view:
Geffen Galleries
Earthenware pedestal bowl with wide flaring rim, painted with bold curvilinear motifs in dark brown and brick red on a sandy tan ground, with horizontal bands on the bulbous stem
Ceramic footed bowl with wide, shallow basin on a bulbous pedestal base. Interior decorated with painted geometric patterns in dark brown and red-orange on buff clay, including chevron-filled triangles and curvilinear bands. Two small loop handles at rim. Horizontal dark bands encircle the pedestal.
Ceramic vessel with wide, shallow bowl atop a rounded pedestal base. The bowl's interior is painted with flowing curvilinear and hatched patterns in red, dark brown, and cream slip. A small loop handle and central opening are visible on the rim. The base is decorated with horizontal dark brown bands.
Ceramic footed vessel with a wide, flat flaring rim and small central opening; the rim is painted in dark brown and red with curvilinear, geometric, and scale-like patterns on a tan ground; the rounded pedestal base is decorated with horizontal dark brown bands.
Ceramic vessel viewed from above, flattened oval form with a central circular opening and small loop handles at the sides, decorated with painted curvilinear and zoomorphic designs in dark brown and red-orange on a tan ground, including scrolls, oval motifs, and hatched scale-like patterns.
Title
Stingray Pedestal Plate
Culture
Greater Coclé
Place Made
Panama, Herrera Province, El Hatillo style
Date Made
1300–1520
Style
El Hatillo
Medium
Engobe-painted earthenware
Dimensions
7 × 12 in. (17.78 × 30.48 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Alan Grinnell and Feelie Lee
Accession Number
M.2016.348.29
Classification
Ceramics
Collecting Area
Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes

Panamanian pedestal plates were produced by ancient artists in the thousands for funerary rites and burials. This vessel, however, represents a modification, becoming a figural jar in the form of a three-dimensional stingray. A common subject for ancient Panamanian artists, stingrays were represented in abstracted two- and three-dimensional forms. Actual stingray spines have been found at Panamanian sites and were used throughout Mesoamerica for ritual bloodletting. Piercing your body with such a spine enabled you to make the most precious offering to the gods: your own pain and blood. Pain was also one way to bring forth visions and thus access the spirit world.

In modern Guna (also Kuna) culture, images of stingrays reference the afterlife: when a fisherman dies, it is said that a manta ray transforms into a boat to take the fisherman to all the places he wanted to see when he was alive.

Julia Burtenshaw

2018