Human Head Effigy Hacha with Closed Eyes
Cotzumalhuapa culture
Guatemala
Middle to late classic 450 - 950 AD
Grey basalt with traces of red pigment
Height 8 1/2"
Provenance: Wally and Brenda Zollman, Indianapolis, IN
Publication: The Face of Ancient America - the Wally and Brenda Zollman collection of Precolumbian Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1989, David Joralemon and others, page 164 #111
Exhibition: Indianapolis Museum of Art, December 3 1988 - February 26, 1989
The Indiana Museum of Art, Bloomington June 13 - September 10, 1989
This hacha probably represents a dead person (sacrificed trophy head?), judging by the hanging closed eyelids. Again, the expression is grim, with parted lips and sunken cheek lines. A crested hairline is delineated over the forehead, and the low - relief ears are of diagnostic Cotzumalhuapan "question mark" conformation. The ear holes are perforated through both sides, and there is a suspension hole in the upper left of the head. The lower rear corner is squared, and the base extends to suggest the severed neck. Both sides of this "thin stone head" are characteristically carved nearly identically.
If these or, more accurately, their wooden prototypes were to be attached to hip yokes, the yoke itself would have had to be notched (an observation also applicable to the tenoned hachas). The drilled hole could have aided in lashing the head to its mount. For other Contzumalhuapan - style hachas, see Parsons 1980: items 278 - 280.
David Joralemon 1988
Appraised New World Art Services March 4, 1997 $16,000
Cotzumalhuapa culture
Guatemala
Middle to late classic 450 - 950 AD
Grey basalt with traces of red pigment
Height 8 1/2"
Provenance: Wally and Brenda Zollman, Indianapolis, IN
Publication: The Face of Ancient America - the Wally and Brenda Zollman collection of Precolumbian Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1989, David Joralemon and others, page 164 #111
Exhibition: Indianapolis Museum of Art, December 3 1988 - February 26, 1989
The Indiana Museum of Art, Bloomington June 13 - September 10, 1989
This hacha probably represents a dead person (sacrificed trophy head?), judging by the hanging closed eyelids. Again, the expression is grim, with parted lips and sunken cheek lines. A crested hairline is delineated over the forehead, and the low - relief ears are of diagnostic Cotzumalhuapan "question mark" conformation. The ear holes are perforated through both sides, and there is a suspension hole in the upper left of the head. The lower rear corner is squared, and the base extends to suggest the severed neck. Both sides of this "thin stone head" are characteristically carved nearly identically.
If these or, more accurately, their wooden prototypes were to be attached to hip yokes, the yoke itself would have had to be notched (an observation also applicable to the tenoned hachas). The drilled hole could have aided in lashing the head to its mount. For other Contzumalhuapan - style hachas, see Parsons 1980: items 278 - 280.
David Joralemon 1988
Appraised New World Art Services March 4, 1997 $16,000
Cotzumalhuapa culture
Guatemala
Middle to late classic 450 - 950 AD
Grey basalt with traces of red pigment
Height 8 1/2"
Provenance: Wally and Brenda Zollman, Indianapolis, IN
Publication: The Face of Ancient America - the Wally and Brenda Zollman collection of Precolumbian Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1989, David Joralemon and others, page 164 #111
Exhibition: Indianapolis Museum of Art, December 3 1988 - February 26, 1989
The Indiana Museum of Art, Bloomington June 13 - September 10, 1989
This hacha probably represents a dead person (sacrificed trophy head?), judging by the hanging closed eyelids. Again, the expression is grim, with parted lips and sunken cheek lines. A crested hairline is delineated over the forehead, and the low - relief ears are of diagnostic Cotzumalhuapan "question mark" conformation. The ear holes are perforated through both sides, and there is a suspension hole in the upper left of the head. The lower rear corner is squared, and the base extends to suggest the severed neck. Both sides of this "thin stone head" are characteristically carved nearly identically.
If these or, more accurately, their wooden prototypes were to be attached to hip yokes, the yoke itself would have had to be notched (an observation also applicable to the tenoned hachas). The drilled hole could have aided in lashing the head to its mount. For other Contzumalhuapan - style hachas, see Parsons 1980: items 278 - 280.
David Joralemon 1988
Appraised New World Art Services March 4, 1997 $16,000