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Whistling Jar

1000–1476
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 684
Although numerous pottery instruments survive from pre-Conquest South and Central America, little is known of how they were used before Spanish invaders ravaged the native cultures. Whistles, trumpets and rattles in animal or human form probably had ceremonial functions or served as playthings. The "whistling jar" is a 1- or 2-chambered vessel in which a whistle, often concealed by a bird's head, is sounded by blowing into the spout, or by pouring liquid from one chamber to the other to create a bird-like twittering sound. Smaller whistles in animal shapes, perhaps worn suspended from the neck, sometimes have fingerholes that allow variation of pitch.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Whistling Jar
  • Period: Late Intermediate (Chimu) (Pre-Columbian)
  • Date: 1000–1476
  • Geography: North Coast, Peru
  • Culture: Chimu
  • Medium: Mold-form clay
  • Dimensions: 6 × 3 3/4 × 7 1/2 in., 2.374oz. (15.2 × 9.5 × 19.1 cm, 67.306g)
  • Classification: Aerophone-Blow Hole-vessel flute
  • Credit Line: The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889
  • Object Number: 89.4.689
  • Curatorial Department: Musical Instruments

Audio

Cover Image for 9350. Whistling Jar

9350. Whistling Jar

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NARRATOR: Indigenous, pre-Hispanic peoples of Central and South America were extremely skilled ceramicists. They produced beautifully sculpted figures, bowls, jars and simple or complicatedly designed whistles and trumpets. Like this whistling jar made sometime between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, many whistles sounded in imitation of the figures they portrayed. [MUSIC FROM OBJECT] This warbling sound is produced as the jar, half-filled with water, is rocked from side to side allowing the liquid to flow between the two chambers. The displaced air deflects across the water's surface and exits through the whistle built into the bird's beak. As with many of the whistles scholars are uncertain as to their purpose. [MUSIC FROM OBJECT]

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Whistling Jar
ca. 1000–1476
Whistling Jar
ca. 1000–1476
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late 19th century
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200 BCE–600 CE
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