Offering Bowl Resting on a Double-Headed Crocodile, 1000 CE - 1350 CE
Terra Cotta
6.5 x 4.875
PF.2244
Further images
A fierce double-headed crocodile, an animal worshiped in the Isthmus regions as a God, guards this offering bowl. With two growling snouts facing in opposite directions, resting atop four muscular...
A fierce double-headed crocodile, an animal worshiped in the Isthmus regions as a God, guards this offering bowl. With two growling snouts facing in opposite directions, resting atop four muscular legs, this fantastic creature seems ready to repel any evil that might approach the bowl. Nature is blended with the human imagination to create a strange new reality. The underside of the bowl is slotted to form a kind of musical instrument, perhaps to attract the attention of the gods. There is no question that this bowl radiates magic. The passage of centuries has not dimmed the power of its reptilian guardians, or the benevolent energy that surrounds them.