Vessel with Lizards and Anadenanthera Tree

AAT Object Form/FunctionStirrup-Spout Vessel

AAT Object Form/FunctionFlasks (bottles)

Place CreatedPeru, South America

CultureMoche

PeriodEarly Intermediate

Date1-650 CE

MediumCeramic

Credit LineGift of William C. and Carol W. Thibadeau

Dimensions11 1/2 x 5 7/8 in. (29.2 x 15 cm)

Object number1989.008.078

Label TextMoche [Moh-chay] art, while seemingly naturalistic, nevertheless stresses the importance of the symbolic level of reality. For example, animals are rarely shown as they appear in nature. Some animals represent war, such as the four lizards whose spiral body designs are painted on Moche human warriors. Lizards perch in acacia trees, the seeds of which are hallucinogenic, so they may suggest shamanic struggles. Lizards eat the trees' seeds, and if humans then eat the lizards, the mind-altering effects become palatable (otherwise the seeds are poisonous). Therefore, lizards may symbolize trances and, beyond that, human spiritual struggle.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11, 1993 - 2001
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 13, 2002 - June 2012
'For I am the Black Jaguar': Shamanic Visionary Experience in Ancient American Art, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 5, 2012 - January 5, 2013
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, February 9, 2013 - May 27, 2022
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, August 1, 2022 - Present
Published ReferencesRebecca Stone-Miller, Seeing With New Eyes: Highlights of the Michael C. Carlos Museum Collection of Art of the Ancient Americas (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2002), 233, figure 528.
Constantino Manuel Torres, "The Origins of the Ayahuasca/Yage Concept: An Inquiry into the Synergy between Dimethyltryptamine and Beta-Carbolines," in Ancient Psychoactive Substances, ed. Scott M. Fitzpatrick (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2018), 251, figure 9.5.

ProvenanceEx coll. William (1920-2002) and Carol (1921-2019) Thibadeau, Atlanta, Georgia, purchased from Jaime Levy, Leicester, England, July 1977.

Status

On view

Collections