The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of January 28, 2023

Ear Rod

c. 700–900

Panama, Conte style, 5th - 10th century

Hammered gold, with greenstone

Diameter: 2 cm (13/16 in.); Overall: 15.5 cm (6 1/8 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1951.547

Location

233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region

Description

Harvard archaeologists excavated this and seven other ornaments 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 a large chest plaque and the rod-shaped ear ornament shown here.

Provenance
Grave 26, excavated by the Harvard Peabody Museum, 1930-1933
Citations
Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 336
Exhibition history

Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; November 9, 1945-January 6, 1946. "Art of the Americas."

Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; February 23-April 3, 1966. "Treasures of Peruvian Gold."

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1951.547