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Bird Effigy Pipe Fragment
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
The modest appearance of this small bird-effigy pipe, its head now lost, is misleading—the carving is fine and imagery, complex. The upper part takes the form of a bird’s body, the wings folded over the back. The section beneath the bird’s breast, intact but difficult to read, may depict a human torso with a pronounced navel and upraised forearms and hands, the palms facing outward. If so, one creature could be carrying or transforming into the other. The pipe was created by an artist of the ancient Adena people of southern Ohio. Smoke traveled through an interior channel to the mouthpiece, a small hole on the underside.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineBird Effigy Pipe Fragment, 400 BCE–100 CE. Native North America, Adena people, Vance Mound, Newton Township, Licking County, Ohio. Sandstone; overall: 6.6 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm (2 5/8 x 1 x 1 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Arthur George Smith, 1963.272
