Gold Pendant of a Man in a Ceremonial Costume

The gold ornaments that have thus far been retrieved from the Calima region include unidentifiable male figures wearing enormous nose rings. This fantastic pendant shows such a personage who is probably a great shaman dressed in ritual costume. He wears a circular shaped headdress, like a crown, with studs on the lower portion and flared rim on the upper section pierced with a series of hales. His coil shaped earrings are almost hidden by the nose ring, which flares outwards like tongues of fire stretching behind his head. It then continues down in three separate sections, acting as a sort of ornamental breastplate. In both hands he holds staffs or scepters, bath encircled with two double-banded rings. He seems also to be wearing an actual breastplate with a horizontal bar extension half covering his pubic region. This pendant may represent the very person who wore the pendant, seen in his ritual regalia. If this were true the individual would have been covered in gold items. With this pendant we become privileged viewers of a fantastic ceremony, a remarkable moment in time held forever in gold where bath ornament and wearer are equally resplendent. – (FJ.6235)