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Source Description
Harvard archaeologists excavated the eight ornaments in this case from several burials at Sitio Conte, a cemetery famous for its lavish graves of powerful chieftains. The young man buried in Grave 26 was such a chief. His status was stunningly memorialized by 21 human companions and 475 objects, many of them personal ornaments made of gold, including the large chest plaque (no. 2) and the rod-shaped ear ornament (no. 3) shown here. The creature on the chest plaque, found close to the chief’s body, has reptile claws and perhaps the head crest of an iguana. Its meaning is unknown but perhaps, as in later periods, reptilian imagery and the warm gleam of gold linked rulers with the sun’s creative force.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
128357
label
Ornament from Sitio Conte: Animal Pendant(?)
core
obj
dtoType
object
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
128357
contentType
object
title
Ornament from Sitio Conte: Animal Pendant(?)
description
Harvard archaeologists excavated the eight ornaments in this case from several burials at Sitio Conte, a cemetery famous for its lavish graves of powerful chieftains. The young man buried in Grave 26 was such a chief. His status was stunningly memorialized by 21 human companions and 475 objects, many of them personal ornaments made of gold, including the large chest plaque (no. 2) and the rod-shaped ear ornament (no. 3) shown here. The creature on the chest plaque, found close to the chief’s body, has reptile claws and perhaps the head crest of an iguana. Its meaning is unknown but perhaps, as in later periods, reptilian imagery and the warm gleam of gold linked rulers with the sun’s creative force.
date
c. 400–900
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q79908804
genreSpecific
Jewelry
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Overall: 4.3 x 5.5 cm (1 11/16 x 2 3/16 in.)
cul
Panama, Conte style, 5th - 10th century
accession
1951.318
Source extras
tec
manatee bone
tombstone
Ornament from Sitio Conte: Animal Pendant(?), c. 400–900. Panama, Conte style, 5th - 10th century. Manatee bone; overall: 4.3 x 5.5 cm (1 11/16 x 2 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1951.318
collection
AA - Intermediate Region
citations
citation
Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: P. 337
creditline
John L. Severance Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 06:37:35.563000
sourceId
128357
dept
Art of the Americas
coll
AA - Intermediate Region
med
manatee bone
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
5333e95df8f12e3e