Single-spout strap-handle vessel depicting a wounded warrior
Peru, south coast, Nasca culture
c. A.D. 500–600
Ceramic
8 x 5 3/4 x 5 7/8 in. (20.32 x 14.6 x 14.92 cm)
General Acquisitions Fund, 1971.58

The regional society called Nasca flourished in the Nasca and Ica River valleys on the south coast of Peru from about 200 B.C. until A.D. 700. The Nasca ceramic tradition continued the south coast preference for round-bottomed vessels with two spouts connected by a strap handle and decoration that emphasized color and painting. Nasca potters applied slip paints (mineral pigments suspended in a thin clay matrix) in as many as a dozen colors to their well-formed bowls, bottles, and jars before the pieces were fired, thereby creating a more durable surface than the post-fired, resin-suspended paints of earlier Paracas pieces. Edible plants, birds, animals, and mythic beings figure prominently in Nasca painted imagery.

Nasca effigy vessels depict costumed human figures, the head fully modeled, the limbs shown in low relief against the full, generalized shape of the body. The Museum’s example represents a wounded warrior who holds his injured right leg. He wears a zigzag-patterned tunic and a headdress with stepped diamond motifs and two knoblike elements. Tied below his chin and spreading across his back is a mantle enhanced by two mythical figures, each dominated by an inverted face with huge eyes, a white mouth mask with whiskerlike extensions, and a long, protruding gray tongue. This masked semi-human creature is associated with fertility and vegetation. Often called the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being, it is one of the most important religious subjects in Nasca art. The profusion of tendril-like elements in the painting, a feature often described as proliferous, identifies the vessel as late Nasca in style.