Bottle figure - Tihuanaco

Bottle whose neck represents the figure of a character.
The straight mouth is slightly engraved. The cheeks are each painted with two cream-colored vertical lines and a midline of identical color decorates the nose in strong relief. The large almond-shaped eyes make the face very expressive. The eyebrows are marked with a black line. The top of the head is delimited by a wide black band. The body is decorated on its front with three inverted flowers, one grey in the centre and two dark red on the sides. They are framed by cream-coloured bands surrounded by black. A loop connects the back of the head and the character’s back.

The civilizations of Tihuanaco and Huari developed between 500 and 1000 ap. J.-C. in the southern Central Andes, in the region comprising the southern coast of Peru, western Bolivia and northern Chile. They probably come from a common ancestral culture, Pucara, and are both considered ancestors of the Inca Empire.
The ceramics of Tihuanaco and Huari are renowned for their finesse, bright colors and great expressiveness. The bottle-figure that we present here is a good example.