This graceful amphora represents the most characteristic shape of Inca pottery. Such vessels, created near the city of Cuzco, were used to hold the pay rations of the army and the civil service. The stylized jaguar head that adorns the body supported the rope that was used to porter the jar on the high roads of the Inca empire. This particular vessel was most likely buried as a tomb offering for an army officer or civil administrator at some point just before the arrival of the Europeans. Simple yet elegant, it seems today to hold memories of a vanished culture, of a world on the brink of change.