Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
October 2001
Costa Rica, a tropical country of environmental and biological diversity, is located between Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south in lower Central America. With Mesoamerica, Costa Rica is one of the two regions in which jade was extensively carved in Precolumbian times. The earliest evidence for worked jade, a pendant excavated in a burial on the Nicoya Peninsula, is dated to the mid-first millennium B.C., and jade continued to be carved into similar personal ornaments until approximately 700 A.D., when its use appears to have died out and/or been replaced by a fashion for ornaments of gold. The early pendant was made in the shape of a celt, or ax, with a top worked into a bird head and torso. Circular eyes and a wide downturned beak define the head above folded wings, in a basic version of what would be the classic Costa Rican bird pendant in jade. The bird-celt pendant would undergo many elaborations during subsequent centuries, all the while retaining these essential features.
Citation
Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Jade in Costa Rica.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jade3/hd_jade3.htm (October 2001)
Further Reading
Jones, Julie, ed. Jade in Ancient Costa Rica. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. See on MetPublications
Additional Essays by Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “La Venta: Sacred Architecture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “La Venta: Stone Sculpture.” (October 2001)
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- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Lydenburg Heads (ca. 500 A.D.).” (October 2000)
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- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan.” (October 2000)
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- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Ancient American Jade.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Jade in Mesoamerica.” (October 2001)
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Related Essays
Chronology
Map
Keywords
- 1st Century A.D.
- 1st Century B.C.
- 2nd Century A.D.
- 2nd Century B.C.
- 3rd Century A.D.
- 3rd Century B.C.
- 4th Century A.D.
- 4th Century B.C.
- 5th Century A.D.
- 5th Century B.C.
- 6th Century A.D.
- 7th Century A.D.
- Americas
- Animal
- Anthropomorphism
- Atlantic Watershed Art
- Bird
- Central America
- Chiriqui Art
- Costa Rica
- Death
- Funerary Art
- Guanacaste-Nicoya Art
- Immortality
- Jade
- Jewelry
- Pendant
- Personal Ornament
- Stone