Central Coast of Peru
Chancay culture

Pottery, pigment
ca. 800 to 1200 CE
Height: 9.8 in; Width: 8.5 in, Length: 4.125 in
Aerophones – Wind Instruments Proper – Edge-blown Flutes

A Pre-Columbian, Central Peru, Chancay double-lobed whistling vessel, ca. 800-1200 CE.  This hand-made Bi-Chrome pottery features a statuette of a standing figure on a circular vessel, wearing a grand headdress and holding a conch shell.  The double-lobed vessel connects at the top with a strap bridge handle and is painted with a cream mineral-based pigment on the surfaces with intricate and varied geometric designs – zigzags, checkerboard, etc., in thick dark brown pigment.  They created their distinctive style of pottery and ceramic figures in a wide range of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic motifs.

The Chancay people, a pre-Hispanic archeological civilization, developed between the valleys of Fortaleza, Pativilca, Supe, Huaura, Chancay, Chillón, Rimac and Lurín, on the central coast of Peru. Their culture emerged after the fall of the Wari civilization. Parts of the southern Chancay area were conquered by the Chimú in the early 1400s, and by about 1450 CE the Incas were occupying both areas.