Severed Head Effigy Vessel
Unknown Artist
c. 100–350 CE
Medium
earthenware with colored slips
Dimensions
22 × 20.5 × 24.5 cm
Classification
Ceramic
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
James Albert and Mary Gardiner Ford Memorial Fund
Accession Number
1997.2
About this artwork
The Nasca people were organized politically into small, competing chiefdoms, and warfare was common. This vessel represents a freshly severed human head (probably that of a captured and sacrificed prisoner) with staring eyes, gaping mouth, and blood-red underside. Modeling of the mouth cavity, tongue, and teeth lends the image a startling realism. Human sacrifice by decapitation was a central element of Nasca religion, essential to agricultural fertility. Severed heads were emptied and dried, th...