
Collection Online as of January 28, 2023
Hammered gold, with greenstone
Diameter: 2 cm (13/16 in.); Overall: 15.5 cm (6 1/8 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1951.547
233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region
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.