Unknown Wari artist, South coast, Peru. Bottle with Three Faces, 850–1000 CE. Slip-painted ceramic, 9 ½ x 6 ½ inches. Denver Art Museum Collection: Gift of Olive Bigelow by exchange, 1996.36.

height: 9.5 in, 24.1300 cm; diameter: 6.5 in, 16.5100 cm

Mayer Center, Arts of the Ancient Americas

Arts of the Ancient Americas

This object is currently on view

Bottle with Three Faces
Wari, Atarco style
About A.D. 850–1000
Peru, south coast
Earthenware with colored slips
Gift of Olive Bigelow by exchange, 1996.36

Winged supernatural figures in running or kneeling postures appear in both Tiwanaku and Wari art as attendants flanking the principal deity.  They are represented with crowned human, bird, or snarling animal heads, and usually brandish a staff before them.  Here, the attendant’s head alone is repeated around the bottle’s shoulder.   Ears of maize in the headdress suggest an association with agricultural abundance, but small skulls painted on the spout make reference to sacrifice and death.

• "Tiwanaku: Ancestors of the Inca" — Denver Art Museum, 10/16/2004 - 1/23/2005