Brooklyn Museum photograph

Object Label

This figure may represent a shaman wearing an elaborate headdress that includes depictions of two diving bats. Bats, efficient hunters that sometimes feed on the blood of other animals, were associated with night and the underworld. By wearing such an ornament, a shaman would have taken on the strength, agility, and night vision of the bat so that he could travel through the cosmos and acquire knowledge inaccessible to other members of the community.

Caption

Tairona. Pendant, 1000–1550 C.E.. Gold, 3 × 2 7/8 × 1 in. (7.6 × 7.3 × 2.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund and Alfred W. Jenkins Fund, 70.157.2. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 70.157.2.jpg)

Gallery

Not on view

Culture

Tairona

Title

Pendant

Date

1000–1550 C.E.

Geography

Place made: Colombia

Medium

Gold

Classification

Ornament

Dimensions

3 × 2 7/8 × 1 in. (7.6 × 7.3 × 2.5 cm)

Credit Line

Dick S. Ramsay Fund and Alfred W. Jenkins Fund

Accession Number

70.157.2

Rights

Creative Commons-BY

You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.

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