"Horned" Male (100 BCE–300 CE): Art, History and Details

"Horned" Male (100 BCE–300 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This figure’s concentrated, otherworldly expression is emphasized by the hornlike element strapped to its forehead. This "horn" may be the spire of a conch shell, which comes from water and, therefore, refers to fertility—likely an important ritual concern of West Mexican chiefs. The element also could represent the "horn of power" worn in some areas of the world by shamans, the spiritual leaders and healers of small, nonindustrial societies.

Object facts

• Title: "Horned" Male
• Date: 100 BCE–300 CE
• Culture: West Mexico, Colima, Comala style
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: earthenware with colored slips, black burial deposits
• Dimensions: Overall: 41.5 x 24.9 x 24.7 cm (16 5/16 x 9 13/16 x 9 3/4 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1991.20

A detail from the museum

This figure’s “horn” may be the spire of a conch shell, a reference to fertility.

Collection credit

Fiftieth anniversary gift of the Womens Council in honor of the Museum's Seventy-fifth anniversary

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H., Alan Chong, Henry Hawley, Jane Glaubinger, Tom E. Hinson, Henry John Drewal, Margaret Young-Sánchez, Stanislaw J. Czuma, J. Keith Wilson, Michael R. Cunningham, Lawrence M. Berman, Ariellé P. Kozloff, Renate Eikelmann, Michael J. Miller, Anne E. Wardwell, and Bruce Robertson. "Notable Acquisitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 3 (1991)
• Townsend, Richard F., and Patricia Rieff Anawalt. Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, 1998.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.