Female figurine
Female figurine

On view

Art of the Ancient Americas

Female figurine,

2400–2250 BCE

Valdivia
Early Formative Period (Valdivia Phase 4)
2016-1260
The rich floodplains along Ecuador’s central coast were among the first places in the Americas where ceramic technology developed in the fourth millennium BCE. The people of this region, known today as the Valdivia culture, had adopted maize agriculture in earlier millennia, allowing hundreds of villages to thrive in the region. Valdivia culture is particularly famous for its small human figurines, rendered initially in stone and later primarily in clay.

Information

Title
Female figurine
Dates

2400–2250 BCE

Medium
Ceramic
Dimensions
10 × 3.1 × 1.8 cm (3 15/16 × 1 3/16 × 11/16 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Gillett G. Griffin
Object Number
2016-1260
Place Made

South America, Ecuador, Guayas

Culture
Valdivia
Type
figurines, ceramics, ceremonial objects
Materials
ceramic
Subject
offspring, men, women, figures (representations), youth

By 1981, Gillett G. Griffin (1928-2016), Princeton, NJ [1]; 2016, bequeathed to the Princeton University Art Museum.

Notes:
[1] According to Rose Art Gallery, Ancient American Art: An Aesthetic View (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University, 1981), fig. 99.

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