Miniature Olmec Jade Hummingbird Perforator, Bloodletting Tool

Pre-Columbian, Mexico, Olmec, ca. 1000–600 BCE. A miniature blue-green jade piercer carved as an avian head, most likely a hummingbird. The rounded, block-like cranium is worked in taut planes, with a single large drilled perforation serving as both eye and suspension hole, incised lines defining the brow and beak, and the folded body summarized in low relief across the rear panel. The bill tapers to a long, needle-sharp point, finely polished along its length. Such implements were likely used as bloodletting perforators, drawing offerings from tongue, ear, or lip in autosacrificial rites, and the hummingbird, a nectar-drinker and darting soul-bird, suited that exchange of fluid and vitality. The lustrous polish across the stone is characteristic of Olmec lapidary mastery. Size: 2" W x 1" H (5.1 cm W x 2.5 cm H).

Jade was the Olmec's supreme material, valued above gold and imported at great cost from the Motagua River valley of present-day Guatemala. Its blue-green range was associated with water, maize, breath, and the vital essence of rulers, and the finest pieces were reserved for ritual instruments and elite adornment. Working it without metal tools demanded abrasive sawing, string-cutting, and solid and hollow drilling with sand slurries, followed by prolonged burnishing to achieve the glassy surface this piece retains.

Bloodletting instruments in jade, stingray spine, and obsidian survive from across Formative Mesoamerica, and the Olmec set the iconographic template later elaborated by the Maya. Avian imagery on such implements links the act to flight and to the passage of offerings between earthly and celestial realms.

Provenance: NYC. collection; Ex. Edward H. Merrin Gallery, Inc., NYC., 1980’s. Ex. Curtis Katz collection, NYC., acquired 1968-69.

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Item #

73013

Condition
Intact, Excellent condition.

Buyer's Premium
30%