Spoon with Bird
Unknown Artist
c. 500–200 BCE
Medium
hammered and cut gold
Dimensions
w. 2.6 cm, l. 17.6 cm
Classification
Metalwork
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Tishman
Accession Number
1958.178
About this artwork
There seems to be a link between Chavín religion and appearance of the Andes’ first large precious-metal objects, made using revolutionary new metallurgical processes. Chavín may have developed these technical innovations to express the inexpressible, the "wholly other" nature of its religion. In many areas, elite men and women wore the ornaments as emblems of their ties to this religion, and eventually were buried with them. These 16 objects, along with three others not in the museum’s collecti...