Costa Rican Jade Anthropomorphic Celt Pendant, Striated Coiffure

Pre-Columbian, Costa Rica, Nicoya region, ca. 500–1000 CE. A standing figure emerges from the butt of a polished celt in mottled blue-green jade, the lower two thirds left smooth and tapering to a broad working edge. The head is carved in the round with a striated coiffure, tiny drilled pupils, a wide flaring nose, and a lipped mouth pierced at the corners. Below a squared collar the arms fold across the chest, fingers rendered as shallow incised strokes. Biconical suspension holes drilled through the neck allowed the piece to hang at the throat. Such axe-god pendants fused the practical form of a woodworking tool with an ancestral or shamanic personage, and were likely worn as prestige regalia by those of high rank before accompanying them into the grave. Mounted on a custom metal base. Size: 3.75" W x 1.5" H (9.5 cm W x 3.8 cm H).

The "axe-god" (hacha dios) is the signature jade form of Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula and Atlantic watershed, produced in quantity between roughly 300 and 700 CE and worn well beyond. Lapidaries began with a ground stone celt blank, then converted its poll into a human, avian, or hybrid head using string saws charged with sand, tubular and solid drills, and long sessions of abrasive polishing: jade cannot be carved, only worn away, so every incised strand of hair represents hours of labor.

Costa Rican jadeite derives chiefly from the Motagua Valley in Guatemala, several hundred miles north, and its presence in Nicoyan graves marks a long-lived exchange network as much as an aesthetic preference. The green stone carried associations with maize, water, and breath across Mesoamerica and lower Central America alike, which made the pendant an emblem of vitality as well as status. By the tenth century, gold displaced jade as the prestige material of the isthmus, closing the tradition.

Provenance: Private Chicago collection. Acquired from John Coiner. Ex. Enrique Vargas collection, Texas.

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Item #

73115

Condition
Extremely minor blade edge roughness, otherwise intact, Excellent condition.

Buyer's Premium
30%