Costa Rican Stone Mano | Jaguar Head Ends, ex-Merrin

Pre-Columbian, Costa Rica, ca. 500–1000 CE. A long baton of gray volcanic stone, pecked and abraded into a slender cylinder and finished at each end with a stylized jaguar head worked in low relief, the muzzles blunt, the ears and brows reduced to raised nubs. Paired with a metate, such a mano ground maize and other foodstuffs, its underside worn smooth and flattened by generations of that labor. The feline finials lift a domestic implement into the realm of prestige goods: the jaguar was the preeminent power animal of the Central American isthmus, and its presence on a grinding stone likely signals a household of rank or an object reserved for feasting and ceremonial preparation rather than daily kitchen use. Size: 15.375" L (39.1 cm L).

Costa Rican lapidaries of the Period V and VI horizons (roughly 500 to 1350 CE) turned volcanic stone into some of the most ambitious ground stone sculpture in the Americas, above all the flying-panel and tripod metates of the Atlantic Watershed and Diquis regions. Manos carved with animal-head terminals belong to that same workshop tradition, and are found in elite burials alongside their metates, suggesting the grinding set functioned as a marker of status and possibly as a seat of authority in symbolic terms. Jaguar imagery recurs throughout isthmian art, in gold pendants, mace heads, and stone thrones, as the emblem of the shaman and the chief.

Provenance: Private Hawaiian collection. Acquired from Artemis Gallery, 2021. Ex. Merrin Gallery, NYC. Acquired from a Florida collection, 1990’s.

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Item #

73089

Condition
Showing evidence of use, having a smoothed surface on the underside. Scattered areas of surface deposits. Intact. Excellent condition.

Buyer's Premium
30%