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Ceremonial Mace (Club) Head: Bird (Male Curassow?)
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Probably once mounted on wooden shafts, these objects could have served as symbols of chiefly authority, group insignia, the heads of ceremonial weapons, or all three. They eventually were placed in elite graves. The bird may be a male curassow and the feline, a jaguar.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineCeremonial Mace (Club) Head: Bird (Male Curassow?), 300 BCE–600 CE. Costa Rica, Southern Nicoya region. Stone. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of John Wise, 1949.194
