Lot 156
**First Time At Auction**
Pre-Columbian, Southern Mexico to Guatemala, Olmec, ca. 1150 to 550 BCE. A smooth, blue-green jade piercer for bloodletting with a simple form that looks like a tadpole with a piercing spike at its tail. A drilled hole in the wider part of the body would allow this to be worn or to be attached to a belt. Size: 2.6" L x 0.55" W (6.6 cm x 1.4 cm)
Research in the late 1990s and early 2000s pinpointed the source of "Olmec blue" jadeite at being in the lowland Motagua River near the modern day border of Guatemala and Honduras; stone from this source was carved and traded widely throughout early Mesoamerica. The value of jade for ancient people lay in its symbolic power: perhaps its color was associated with water and vegetation; later, the Maya would place jade beads in the mouths of the dead. Many scholars have argued that the demand for jadeite contributed to the rise of long distance trading networks and to the rise of urban centers in ancient Mesoamerica. This would have been an exceedingly valuable and rare piece of ceremonial art.
Unlike the later Maya, we have not found any representations of ritual bloodletting in Olmec art. However, jade and ceramic perforators as well as representations of such paraphernalia on stelae and in iconography provide evidence of its practice among the Olmec. For example, a translation of the Epi-Olmec culture's La Mojarra Stela 1 tell of the ruler's ritual bloodletting. And so, this is a special example of Olmec visual culture, telling of a long tradition.
Provenance: Ex- Private Atlanta, GA collection
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#119894
- Condition: Overall excellent.
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