A Rare Tiwanaku Wood Beaker, ca. A.D. 400-1000

the ceremonial cup carved with a dramatic and fierce depiction of the principal deity, the human face with prominent cheekbones undercut by the projecting rectangular openwork snout with long crossed fangs at each side, the eyes bulging, with bangs and collar of thick, tapered elements, perhaps teeth or claws, surrounded by the arched headband of the double-headed condor, surmounted on each side with rayed plumes, wing elements and a bird head, with a solid raised band around the back rim. 

Andre Emmerich, Inc. 1969 

New York, Sun Gods and Saints, Art of PreColumbian and Colonial Peru, Alan Lapiner and Andre Emmerich, December 6-31, 1969, fig. 29, illus.

As shown, the rim chipped and eroded, the back with cracks , the projecting face showing a crack along the top and curving down the right side of the forehead.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This is one of the rare surviving wood beakers of the Tiwanaku culture, bearing a version of the principal deity figure, shown with traits of both the staff-bearing figure on the Gateway to the Sun, and the Decapitator Deity. Wood artifacts are extremely rare, with only snuff tablets and beakers surviving. Beakers were used for the ceremonial drinking of chincha, and were one of the key power objects, as shown being held on the Ponce and Bennett monoliths.
Most wood items are found outside Tiwanaku proper, in the arid conditions of the Moquegua Valley towards the coast and the southern highland desert regions of Arica and San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

Tiwanaku, the ancestral and mythic home to the Imperial Inca, was an administrative capital and the most important ceremonial center of the south-central Andes from AD 400-1100. Tiwanaku was also, along with Lake Titicaca and the Islands of the Sun and the Moon, the most important pilgrimage site in the Inca empire.  At the height of its power, there were as many as 25,000 or more inhabitants living in the city. The rulers built massive 'temple mountains,' transforming earlier sacred sites into their own private residences and places of public ceremony. These meticulously planned urban communities were aligned with the cardinal directions along a solar axis, and 'planted' with monumental stone sculptures. It was an awe-inspiring locale, essentially a mimetic of the natural landscape of mountains and lakes, that recreated and alluded to the cosmic order that the ruling elite were meant to maintain (Kolata in Young-Sanchez, 2004:105).
Wood items showing similar iconographic elements to this beaker include a wood kero with the principal deity surrounded by rayed elements, a snuff tube with the Decapitator Deity, and a shallow bowl with a face of a bulging eyed, cross-fanged creature; see Young-Sanchez, (2004: Figs. 2.50 , 2.48) for the first two, and Emmerich (1966: fig. 19) for the bowl.
For three other small wood beakers, one at The Metropolitan Museum of Art , see Lapiner (1976: fig. 568), another exhibited at the Emmerich gallery (1968: fig. 35), and the third sold at Sotheby's, May 2, 1990, lot 14.                   .