Beaker 11/18/2024

Between 1200 and 500 BCE, a religious tradition known today as Cupisnique or Chavín left its mark in the visual arts of the North Coast and highlands of Peru. While some works combined features of felines, raptorial birds, and reptiles, others were non-figurative, more abstracted, or represented other facets of life. Cupisnique and Chavín artists excelled at carving stone, from bowls with spider iconography to large monoliths seen as enlivened non-human entities. This small beaker is a refined example showing plants. The elongated forms and the mushroom-like shapes could be very stylized depictions of the fruits and flowers of the Devil’s trumpet (Brugmansia). The bird heads and arms emerging from the stems’ ends may be evocations of the hallucinogenic effects of consuming this plant.

This stone beaker reminds us that religious practices in the Andes were physical acts in which the body was a medium to perceive and experience the divine. The consumption of entheogens was widespread among ancient Indigenous American societies, a practice that continues to the present in many communities.

Hugo C. Ikehara-Tsukayama, Senior Research Associate, Arts of the Ancient Americas, 2023

References and Further Reading

Burger, Richard L. Chavin and the Origins of Andean Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 90-99.

Burtenshaw-Zumstein, Julia T. Cupisnique, Tembladera, Chongoyape, Chavín? A Typology of Ceramic Styles from Formative Period Northern Peru, 1800-200 BC. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Norwich: University of East Anglia, 2014.

Elera, Carlos. "El complejo cultural Cupisnique: Antecedentes y desarrollo de su Ideología religiosa." Senri Ethnological Studies, No. 37 (1993), pp. 229-57.

Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C. The Cupisnique-Chavín Religious Tradition in the Andes. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.448