Tumaco-Tolita Seated Elder: This 2,000-year-old depiction of an aged man with wrinkles struck fear in people because it held 'the power'

Features
By published

Tumaco-Tolita artists were known for their intense realism in sculpting clay representations of humans.

a broken ceramic figurine depicting an elderly man seated on a stool
The clay figurine depicts an elder of the Tumaco-Tolita people, who lived near the border of Ecuador and Colombia more than 2,000 years ago. (Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Gift of Gertrud A. Mellon, 1982; (Public Domain))
QUICK FACTS

Name: Tumaco-Tolita Seated Elder

What it is: A ceramic figurine

Where it is from: Near the Colombia-Ecuador border

When it was made: Between 200 B.C. and A.D. 300

Around two millennia ago, Tumaco-Tolita potters living in what is now Colombia and Ecuador began crafting hyperrealistic sculptures of their revered elders. This figurine of an older man, on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, may have been a religious specialist, shaman or other leader in his community.

The statue has small holes in the nose, ears and nipples, suggesting that gold adornments once decorated the figurine. (Marked nipples were more commonly used to depict women in Tumaco-Tolita art, Ikehara-Tsukayama noted, but the statue is not wearing a long skirt typical of depictions of women, so the gender is unclear.)

The figurine was crafted from gray clay paste that was commonly used by the Tumaco-Tolita people (also spelled Tumaco-La Tolita and Tolita-Tumaco), and it would have taken several days to complete due to the complexity of the design. It was likely polished and painted in antiquity, but the colors have worn away over time.

This elderly man was depicted sitting on a stool, which was a symbol of authority in the ancient Americas. He also may have been a shaman who helped connect people with supernatural beings. The old man's prominent spine and dry, wrinkled skin evoke those of an iguana, according to Ikehara-Tsukayama, and this animal connection could have been one key to the shaman's power.

This sculpture is one of the earliest known depictions of a seated leader from this area of Ecuador and Colombia, according to the Met. Male leaders who held religious and secular power in ancient American societies were sometimes called caciques.

The statue of the cacique was likely displayed or carried in important ritual ceremonies, Florencio Delgado Espinoza, an archaeologist at San Francisco University in Quito, Ecuador, explained in an audio interview posted on the Met's website, but the figurine's exact function is unknown.

"People love these caciques, but also they really were scared of them because they have the power — so it's love and fear," he said.

The Tumaco-Tolita were also well known for their metalworking. They lived in an area rich in natural gold and crafted impressive figurines out of the precious metal. But the group disappeared from their coastal homeland by A.D. 500, likely dispersing to other parts of South America.

For more stunning archaeological discoveries, check out our Astonishing Artifacts archives.

Kristina Killgrove
Kristina Killgrove
Staff writer

Kristina Killgrove is a staff writer at Live Science with a focus on archaeology and paleoanthropology news. Her articles have also appeared in venues such as Forbes, Smithsonian, and Mental Floss. Kristina holds a Ph.D. in biological anthropology and an M.A. in classical archaeology from the University of North Carolina, as well as a B.A. in Latin from the University of Virginia, and she was formerly a university professor and researcher. She has received awards from the Society for American Archaeology and the American Anthropological Association for her science writing.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.