Chimu-Inca Double-Sided Wood Scepter | Warrior, Trophy Heads

Pre-Columbian, Peru, Central Coast, Chimu-Inca, ca. 1000–1425 CE. A carved hardwood scepter worked on both faces with a standing figure who grips a severed trophy head by the hair in each hand. A broad oval nimbus frames the face, incised with a cross-banded headdress above lidded eyes and a narrow nose; below, a knee-length skirt is rendered in shallow relief. A tall tapering blade rises from the crown, hollowed as a rattle chamber that once held loose pellets, so the implement sounded as it was raised. The shaft continues below a notched collar into an integral grip that tapers to a point. The deep brown surface carries the sheen of long handling. Likely an emblem of rank carried in ritual procession, its clashing of sound and severed heads a display of martial authority. Size: 20.875" L (53.0 cm L).

The Chimu-Inca horizon names the material culture of the Peruvian north and central coast after the Inca conquest of the Chimu kingdom around 1470, when imperial forms and coastal workshop traditions merged. Woodcarving flourished along the arid coast, where burial conditions preserved staffs, paddles, litter poles, and figural posts that would have perished almost anywhere else in the Andes.

The trophy head held aloft by the hair is one of the oldest and most durable motifs in Andean art, reaching back through Moche and Nasca imagery to Chavin. It signals captured vitality as much as battlefield victory: the head was a source of fertility and power, not merely a token of a defeated enemy. The oval frame enclosing this figure's face is usually read as a radiant nimbus, an attribute of solar and ancestral beings, marking the bearer as more than mortal. The integrated rattle is characteristic of Andean ceremonial staffs, where sound was an active ritual instrument rather than ornament.

Provenance: Private Chicago collection, acquired from Bettina Schwimmer, Chicago, 1980’s. Exhibited: Gael Grayson, Chicago, mid 1990’s.

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Item #

73209

Condition
A tall rattle element projects from the top of his head, which once held rattle balls. Overall excellent deep brown surface. Intact.

Buyer's Premium
30%