id: 135161 accession number: 1958.191 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1958.191 updated: 2022-06-10 18:37:48.717000 Ear Spool, c. 400-900. Panama, Conte style, 5th - 10th century. Hammered gold; diameter: 3.1 cm (1 1/4 in.); overall: 3.2 cm (1 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Roberta Holden Bole Fund 1958.191 title: Ear Spool title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 400-900 creation date earliest: 400 creation date latest: 900 current location: 233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region creditline: Roberta Holden Bole Fund copyright: --- culture: Panama, Conte style, 5th - 10th century technique: hammered gold department: Art of the Americas collection: AA - Intermediate Region type: Metalwork find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Diameter: 3.1 cm (1 1/4 in.); Overall: 3.2 cm (1 1/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE These ear spools were excavated by the Harvard Peabody Museum between 1930 and 1933. date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: Harvard archaeologists excavated the eight ornaments in this case from several burials at Sitio Conte, a cemetery famous for its lavish graves of powerful chieftains. The young man buried in Grave 26 was such a chief. His status was stunningly memorialized by 21 human companions and 475 objects, many of them personal ornaments made of gold, including the large chest plaque (no. 2) and the rod-shaped ear ornament (no. 3) shown here. The creature on the chest plaque, found close to the chief’s body, has reptile claws and perhaps the head crest of an iguana. Its meaning is unknown but perhaps, as in later periods, reptilian imagery and the warm gleam of gold linked rulers with the sun’s creative force. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 336 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1958.191/1958.191_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1958.191/1958.191_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1958.191/1958.191_full.tif