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Severed Head Effigy Vessel

c. 100–350 CE
earthenware with colored slips
Overall: 22 x 20.5 x 24.5 cm (8 11/16 x 8 1/16 x 9 5/8 in.)
James Albert and Mary Gardiner Ford Memorial Fund 1997.2
Location: not on view
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Description

The Nasca people were organized politically into small, competing chiefdoms, and warfare was common. This vessel represents a freshly severed human head (probably that of a captured and sacrificed prisoner) with staring eyes, gaping mouth, and blood-red underside. Modeling of the mouth cavity, tongue, and teeth lends the image a startling realism. Human sacrifice by decapitation was a central element of Nasca religion, essential to agricultural fertility. Severed heads were emptied and dried, then pierced through the forehead and suspended from a thick cord. Such preserved heads have been recovered from offering deposits and from tombs, where they were buried with their captors.
Severed Head Effigy Vessel

Severed Head Effigy Vessel

c. 100–350 CE

Peru, South Coast, Nasca

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