This powerfully carved piece is a metate from the Guanacaste-Nicoya people of prehispanic Costa Rica. Technically, a metate is designed for grinding cereals, but it has been convincingly argued that the more extravagantly designed and decorated metates – of which this is an excellent example – are in fact ceremonial objects, possibly for seating, but more likely for ritual purposes, or as regalia. This has been substantiated by the observation that the most luxurious examples are rarely “worn”, as they would be if they had been used for their intended purpose; plainer examples are invariably worn almost to destruction. This metate resembles a mushroom, with a flat top and an inverted-funnel base. The base has been decorated with subtractive geometric incisions that follow the vertical line of the stand and a sense of lightness that prevents a sense of monolithic heaviness in the piece. The superior surface is plain, with an elevated rim around the perimeter. The inferior edge of the seat has been extensively decorated with zoomorphic figures that progress around the perimeter. Most have been carved to make it seem as if they are “hanging” from the edge by their hands/paws and tails. They display a range of characteristics that suggest therianthropic creatures (animal-human transformations, such as werewolves or were-jaguars), including birds, jaguars, monkeys and other animals that cannot be identified with certainty.

Guanacaste is a northwestern province of Costa Rica, facing onto the Pacific Ocean. The archaeological cultures here have been influenced by the country’s position on the fringes of numerous Prehispanic empires, and they are perhaps best-known for their astounding stone carving heritage. Metates are among the most complex objects that were made by these groups; most of their pieces were anthropomorphic figures, rendered in powerful monolithic poses. There are numerous types of ceremonial metates, which may have been made for interment with high-ranking members of the societies. The main one is the effigy-headed metate, with a head at one end and the main section of the metate making up its body. Rather rarer, and originating in the area around the Atlantic Watershed city of Guayabo, is the so-called “flying-panel” metate, of which this piece is an exceptional example. These models are multi-figural, extremely geometrically complex, and are believed to be the precursor to free standing sculptural figures more common later in the Atlantic watershed region.

The metate’s basic mechanical purpose is a platform on which cereals are ground into flour. This transformation of grain to flour has symbolic implications relating to life, death and rebirth. It is still not clear if maize was a main source of sustenance, and it is entirely possible that maize was reserved for making chicha (beer), for use in ritual feasting activities. Given their role as a burial good, it seems that metate held a strong meaning for human life, death and the hope for a rebirth or transformation of some kind. The different animals also have putative symbolic meanings; for instance, saurians are believed to relate to agricultural fertility. Secure archaeological data puts the present metate at between the 1st and 7th centuries AD, as the stylistic conventions of the carving are comparatively diagnostic.

This is a powerful and impressive piece of ancient Mesoamerican art, and a credit to any collection of the genre.