Nazca Wood Drug Spoon

**Originally Listed At $350**

Pre-Columbian, South Coast Peru, Nazca culture, ca. 100 BCE to 800 CE. A beautifully-preserved wooden spoon with a teardrop-shaped bowl and a long, thin handle ending in an hourglass-shaped finial. Spoons like this one were part of the elaborate battery of objects carefully manufactured by ancient Andeans in order to ingest a ground drug known as vilca or huilca, found in southern Peru and Bolivia, and obtained from the beans of the tree Anadenanthera colubrina. We know of them from burials, where they were placed as offerings and perhaps to provision the dead alongside inhalation tubes and other paraphernalia. Size: 1.5" W x 6" H (3.8 cm x 15.2 cm); 7.3" H (18.5 cm) on included custom stand.

Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-Westermann collection, Germany

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#123838
Condition Report: Slight wear on wood on as shown, with patina from age and handling. Tiny chip from base.