Plate with Supernatural Being
Unknown Artist
900–600 BCE
Medium
stone (probably steatite [soapstone])
Dimensions
4 × 16.4 cm
Classification
Ceramic
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
J.H. Wade Trust Fund
Accession Number
2021.131
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This plate is carved with a feline supernatural sacrificer who holds a severed human head in its clawed paws. The diagonal clusters of plant foliage at the figure’s shoulders and hips imply that death is tied to the earth’s fertility, one being a precondition for the other. The figure, therefore, may be an apotheosis of the life-death cycle.