Vatican Museums

Pectoral composed of a large plate in a stylised shape, recalling the abstract form of a bird in flight, decorated with anthropo-zoomorphic depictions in relief on the front: a large anthropomorphic figure at the top centre, and seven human effigies with a half-moon-shaped headdress and what appear to be birds’ feet, alluding to the transformation of the shaman into a man-bird; two heads of a bird of prey, with a hooked beak and wings protruding from the sides. Muisca shamans and caciques wore this type of pectoral plate during ritual ceremonies. The decorative repertoire is recurrent in the iconography in works in gold of ancient Colombian cultures and tends overall to recall the symbolism associated with the man-bird and therefore the shamanic context. The bird in flight had the ability to draw close to the heavenly world, divine and occult, the desired destination of shamans who sought to enter in order to improve their knowledge and to transmit it to mere mortals.