Chavin Redware Anthropomorphic Vessel

On this unusual pot, it is difficult to tell where the figure leaves off and the vessel begin. Rendered with naive charm, it combines surface modeling with etched lines and textured decoration. Though hardly a realistic approach to the human figure, it evokes with lively style the lives of those who held it long ago. We can imagine some potter shaping it and selling it, another person filling it with an offering of drink and placing it in some ancient tomb to pass eternity with the deceased. In such a vessel we feel the very pulse of the vanished culture that created it.