Mace Head (c. 200 BCE–100 CE): Art, History and Details

Mace Head (c. 200 BCE–100 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This handsome object was slipped onto a wooden shaft to form a mace, a club-like weapon used in war. It is unclear, however, whether the ancients used examples as well carved as this one in anything but ceremonial circumstances.

Object facts

• Title: Mace Head
• Date: c. 200 BCE–100 CE
• Culture: North coast of Peru, Salinar culture
• Type: Stone
• Technique: stone
• Dimensions: Overall: 11.2 x 8.9 x 8.3 cm (4 7/16 x 3 1/2 x 3 1/4 in.)
• Collection: AA - Andes
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1992.348

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1992.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38–79.

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.