Kero (beaker)

Wooden beakers, known as keros in Quechua, were the primary vessels for Inca libation rites with a maize beer known as chicha. Inca keros typically have incised geometrical designs similar to those on textiles and were crafted in pairs. Toasting, be it with huacas (enlivened, sacred entities of the landscape), ancestors, or other community members, was the Andean way to establish and maintain relationships.

The exterior of this kero was decorated with two unequal registers of incised patterning. A continuous geometric pattern encircles the rim featuring small, concentric, interlocking rectangles. The pattern can also be read as repeated diamond shapes. On the lower three-quarters of the vessel, the pattern is worked vertically alternating plain areas with an incised chevron design.

Elaborate toasts were a key part of Inca rituals and in Andean feasts drinking was more important than eating (Cummins, 2002: 39). Such exchanges were occasionally depicted by Inca artists, such as one shown on a copper tumi (a type of knife with a curved blade; see Emmerich and Lapiner, 1969: pl. 56 and Lapiner, 1976: 319). Keros continued to be made and used in the colonial period, albeit in different contexts and with different imagery (see, for example, MMA 1994.35.15, .16).

Further Reading and References

Cummins, Thomas B. F. Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images on Quero Vessels. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.

Emmerich, André, and Alan Lapiner. Sun Gods and Saints: Art of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Peru. Exh. cat. New York: Andre Emmerich Gallery, 1969.

Kusunoki, Ricardo, Cecilia Pardo and Julio Rucabado. Los incas. Más allá de un imperio. Lima: Museo del Arte, 2023.

Lapiner, Alan. Pre-Columbian Art of South America. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1976. See especially p. 319.

Ochoa, Jorge F., Elizabeth K. Arce, and Roberto S. Argumedo. Queros: Arte Inka en vasos ceremonials. Lima: Banco de Crédito, 1998.

Pearlstein, Ellen J., Emily Kaplan, Ellen Howe, and Judith Levinson. "Technical Analyses of Painted Inka and Colonial Qeros." Objects Specialty Group Postprints 6 (2000), pp. 1999-2000.

Shimada, Izumi, ed. The Inka Empire: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015.