COSTA RICAN STONE EFFIGY METATE GREATER NICOYA REGION, CIRCA AD 800 - 1200

This metate is a fine example of the reductive carving so renowned in the elaborate basalt metates of the Greater Nicoya and Atlantic Watershed zones. It is unusual for the openwork "curtain" form suspended laterally between the front and rear legs. Each of the four legs is an upside-down pot-bellied figure with hands raised to the face, and carved on each "curtain" is a long-beaked bird also shown upside down, whose torso is marked by plumage and an openwork cross. The curved platform has two projecting avian heads on one end, and the underside of the platform is finely carved with the 'mat motif' of woven elements flanked on each short end by 'selvedge' elements.

For similar metates see Stone, Pre-Columbian Man in Costa Rica, New York, 1977, pp. 197-199, fig. 266; also see similar metates in the Denver Art Museum, Object no. 1995.566, and Object no. 2017.234.