The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 4, 2023

Ear Spool

c. 400–900

Panama, Conte style, 5th - 10th century

Hammered gold

Diameter: 3 cm (1 3/16 in.); Overall: 3 cm (1 3/16 in.)

Roberta Holden Bole Fund 1958.192

Location

233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region

Description

Harvard archaeologists excavated these 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 a rod-shaped ear ornament.

Provenance
These ear spools were excavated by the Harvard Peabody Museum between 1930 and 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; February 23-April 3, 1966. "Treasures of Peruvian Gold."

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1958.192