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Discovery of a Pre-Columbian Gold Figurine in Cuba*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2017
Extract
The hills of the barrio of Yaguajay in the municipality of Banes, Cuba have yielded a number of rich finds of archaeological material. To these was added in 1948 a gold figurine, which is of importance as the first such specimen to be reported from the Antilles.
The figurine measures 48 mm. in height, weighs 14.1 grams, and has been cast from 10-carat gold (Fig.111 , left.) It portrays a naked woman, standing and holding a small vessel at the height of the stomach. The head is adorned with three stylized tufts of feathers, and two disks project from the ears in the form of shell helices. The face, nose, eyes, and mouth are very similar to those of the clay, shell, bone, and stone figures of the Banes region (e.g., Fig.111 ,right). The two breasts stand out from the body and the legs are in the form of nodules; although provided with feet, they lack toes.
- Type
- Facts and Comments
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1950
Footnotes
4
Translated by Irving Rouse.
*
Paper delivered at the Seventh National Congress of History, Santiago de Cuba, in November, 1948.
References
1 Several of these were reported by us at the Sixth National Congress of History in Trinidad, Cuba: Descubrimiento y excavación de un monticulo funeral en el potrero “El Porvenir” and Objetos raros de la cultura Tatna encontrados en el cacigazo de Bani. See also Irving Rouse “Archeology of the Maniabón Hills, Cuba,” Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 26, New Haven, 1942, pp. 90–107.
2 Rouse, op. cit., pp. 96–7, 103–7.
3 E.g., Pal Kelemen, Medieval American Art, New York, 1943, Pls. 202, b; 217, c; 225, c.
4 Translated by Irving Rouse.