The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 18, 2024

Bird Effigy Pipe Fragment

Bird Effigy Pipe Fragment

400 BCE–100 CE
sandstone
Overall: 6.6 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm (2 5/8 x 1 x 1 in.)
Gift of Arthur George Smith 1963.272
Location: not on view

Description

The modest appearance of this small bird-effigy pipe, its head now lost, is misleading—the carving is fine and imagery, complex. The upper part takes the form of a bird’s body, the wings folded over the back. The section beneath the bird’s breast, intact but difficult to read, may depict a human torso with a pronounced navel and upraised forearms and hands, the palms facing outward. If so, one creature could be carrying or transforming into the other. The pipe was created by an artist of the ancient Adena people of southern Ohio. Smoke traveled through an interior channel to the mouthpiece, a small hole on the underside.
  • c. 1882
    Found in a stone mound on the farm of Jacob Vance, about a mile west of St. Louisville, Newton Township, Licking County, Ohio, by Mr. B. Jones of Columbus, Ohio.
    James C. Wright
    Charles F. Wray, West Rush, NY
    ?-1963
    Arthur George Smith, Norwalk, Oh, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1963-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Townsend, Earl C. "Hopewell or Adena Effigy Pipes." Central States Archaeological Journal 1, no. 2 (1954). p. 45, 47-48 www.jstor.org
    Smith, Arthur George. "An Adena Effigy Pipe," The Ohio Archaeologist Vol. 14, no. 1 (1964). pp. 26-27
  • {{cite web|title=Bird Effigy Pipe Fragment|url=false|author=|year=400 BCE–100 CE|access-date=18 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1963.272