Costa Rica Stone Mace Head | Deity Head with Crest

Pre-Columbian, Costa Rica, Atlantic Watershed, ca. 500–1000 CE. A compact deity head carved from pale creamy bluish-green compacted limestone, worked as the striking element of a ceremonial mace. The face is reduced to broad planes: large recessed round eyes beneath a heavy banded brow, a small angular nose, and a wide, narrow slot of a mouth. Concentric ring reliefs mark the ears, and a raised crest or headdress rises from the crown in stepped ridges. The interior is hollowed by a large drilled hafting socket that once received a wooden shaft. Weapons of this class were carried as insignia rather than swung in combat, their heads likely rendering ancestral or supernatural personages for display in procession and rite. Mounted on a custom metal base. Size: 4" W x 3.25" H x 4.5" D (10.2 cm W x 8.3 cm H x 11.4 cm D).

Stone mace heads are among the signature productions of Costa Rica's Atlantic Watershed and Central Highland zones during the Period V and VI horizons, when jade working declined and hardstone carving turned toward maces, metates, and monumental figural sculpture. Excavated examples cluster in high-status graves, frequently alongside gold pendants and elaborate tripod metates, which supports reading them as emblems of rank held by chiefly or ritual specialists rather than functional arms. Their subjects range across raptorial birds, felines, and crested anthropomorphs of the sort seen here; the crest may render a feathered headdress, a mark of office in the region's iconographic vocabulary. The drilled socket, tapering to secure a hafted shaft, was produced by abrasion with sand and a hollow reed or bone drill.

Provenance: Collection of Jimmy Belilty, Miami. Acquired from Latin American Artist Carlos Poveda, Caracas and Paris, 1980 - 1990.

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Item #

73119

Condition
A small surface flake on the head crest, and a few very minor scattered surface abrasions, otherwise intact, overall Excellent condition.

Buyer's Premium
30%