Details
Muisca Breastplate
Title: Breastplate in the shape of a bird with multiple heads
Creator: Eastern Cordillera - Muisca Period
Date: 600/1600
Physical Dimensions: w225 x h210 mm
Type: Goldwork
Location: Cosmology and Symbolism room
Technique: Lost wax casting in tumbaga
Finding: Colombia, Cundinamarca, Guatavita
Accession number: O01253
In this pectoral, six birds with folded wings and crouching human figures on their heads, rest on the back of a larger bird. Another two human figures, also in a squatting position, sit on its open wings. They are probably shamans on their initiation flight, as described in certain traditions of present-day indigenous groups.
This winged breastplate, similar in iconographic terms to those found in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, reveals a mythical view of the world shared by these Chibcha-speaking societies.
Details
Tayrona Breastplate
Title: Breastplate in the shape of a bird with multiple heads
Creator: Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta - Tairona Period
Date: 900/1600
Physical Dimensions: w205 x h182 mm
Type: Goldwork
External Link: People and Gold in Pre-Hispanic Colombia
Technique: Lost wax casting, hammering and embossing in tumbaga with depletion gilding
Finding: Colombia, Magdalena, Ciénaga
Accession number: O12943
This breastplate displays the basic form of a bird with spread wings and with a forked tail. It is probably the depiction of some sort of ritual. Four masked shamans appear in a squatting position on the heads of four birds of prey, themselves perched on the back of the larger bird.
Pieces similar to this have been found in Muisca territory, undoubtedly evidence of the cultural and linguistic relationship between these societies.
Gold objects were also traded over long distances and goldsmiths themselves were also mobile, sometimes working far from their homeland. As a result, objects sometimes appear to incorporate elements of different regional styles. Gold was mined primarily from the Andes and then traded between the several societies of the region.