FrogFriday 🐸:

Carving of a frog, 700-800 CE Maya culture, Topoxte, Guatemala Shell & quartz, 21/8 x 23/4 x 1/4 in (6.7 X 7 x 0.4 cm) Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala From the exhibition “Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea”

“Originally part of a sumptuous burial offering from the island of Topoxte in Lake Yaxha, this shell carving portrays a smooth and nimble swimming frog, limbs in motion, with pale eyes of inlaid stones. Its captivating color and delicate pattern come from the natural appearance of the Oliva porphyria shell, which is found in the Pacific Ocean in southern Central America.“

For #WorldOctopusDay 🐙:

Octopus Frontlet

Moche (La Mina), Peru, 300–600 CE

Gold, chrysocolla, shells

H. 11 × W. 16 15/16 × D. 1 3/4 in. (27.9 × 43.1 × 4.4 cm)

Museo de la Nación, Lima, Ministerio de Cultura del Perú (MN-14602)

“This object would have been affixed to a cylindrical headdress. Made of gold sheet, it was cut into the shape of a supernatural figure with serrated octopus tentacles that terminate in catfish heads. The creature rests on two clawlike feet, depicted in low relief. Reportedly found at La Mina, in the Jequetepeque Valley, the frontlet is remarkably similar to an example illustrated on a ceramic vessel from Dos Cabezas.”

For #WorldDolphinDay 🐬:

Ben Houstie (Pacific NW Coast, Heiltsuk Nation, b.1960)

Dolphins, 2000

Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20 in.

#NationalHummingbirdDay :

Bottle with Hummingbirds

Nazca culture, Peru, South Coast, 1-400CE

Ceramic, slip, H. 6 × Diam. 5 in. (15.2 × 12.7 cm)

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1978.412.91

“Double-spout bottles such as this one were used as funerary offerings. They were also an integral part of the ritual consumption of food and corn beer carried out at Cahuachi. The use of bottles with elaborate decoration was related to feasts, processions, and other prestige building activities carried out by high-status individuals and households. Nazca iconography includes a great variety of plants, animals, and more than twenty species of birds. This bottle shows hummingbirds with long thin beaks feeding on flowers painted at the base of each spout.”

Bonus baby version:

Double Spout Bottle

Nazca, Peru, Central Andes, Rio Grande de Nasca, 1st-6th c. CE

Ceramic, H. 3 1/8 × Diam. 2 in. (7.9 × 5.1 cm)

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1994.35.61

#FrogFriday 🐸:

Pot with Frog Decoration

Pachacámac, Perú, 200-600 CE

Ceramic

On display at Penn Museum 27301

“Marks inside this vessel indicate it was used for food preparation - spoons or sticks stirred meals and left scratches behind. A pot this large would have been big enough to serve a whole family. Frogs were a common motif.”

Rabbit Effigy Vessel

Mexico, Southern Veracruz, Classic Veracruz Culture, 600-900 CE

Ceramic, H 15.4 x L 15.7 x W 8.2 cm

On display at Penn Museum 68-30-1

For #InternationalBatNight on a #Baturday 🦇:

Lin Onus (Australia, Yorta Yorta, 1948-1996)

1. Bats in Flight, n.d. Watercolour & gouache, 48.7 x 37 cm

2. Warrinya (Flying Foxes), 1993 Gouache on illustration board, 49 x 37 cm

“Onus…developed his signature style of incorporating photorealism with Indigenous imagery. It is a virtuoso effect, in which the landscape is overlaid with traditional Indigenous iconography, reflecting his strong ties with his father’s community at Cummergunja Mission, on the Murray River. Onus’s works from this period often have a riddling, Magritte-like quality.” https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/onus-lin/

For #InternationalWolfDay 🐺:

Bill Reid (Haida, Pacific NW Coast, 1920-1998)

Haida Wolf - Godj, 1979

Colour silkscreen on paper, 16.5 x 17 in.

For #InternationalArmadilloDay :

Armadillo effigy pot

Nicoya culture (Pacífico Norte, Costa Rica), 1000-1300 CE

Polychrome ceramic, 21.3 x 26.8 cm

Museo del Oro Precolombino, Costa Rica

#FishFriday:

Kenojuak Ashevak (Inuit [Cape Dorset/Kinngait], 1927-2013) Deep Blue Sea, 2003 Lithographed & stenciled print, 113 x 76 cm Smithsonian NMAI 80607

#MonotremeMonday:

Echidna petroglyph, 90cm

from the 'Echidna and Fish' site at West Head in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, NSW, Australia

“It is difficult to date the echidna engraving using current scientific techniques, particularly as there is no soil covering it. Dating is also difficult because re-grooving sometimes occurs during later ceremonies. However the style of the drawing, known as 'simple figurative', and its state of preservation suggests it was made in the last few thousand years. The simple figurative style is confined to the region.”

via Australian Museum:

#MosaicMonday:

Jaguar Pectoral Mixteca-Puebla, Tehuacán Late Postclassic period, c.1200–1400 Stone, shell, wood 3 3/8 x 6 3/8 x 1/2 in. (8.6 x 16.2 x 1.3 cm) Saint Louis Art Museum 163:1979

#InternationalOwlAwarenessDay 🦉:

Kenojuak Ashevak (Inuit [Cape Dorset/Kinngait], 1927-2013) Hidden Owls, 2006 & Flamboyant Owl, 2006 Serigraphs, each 58 x 56 cm Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian 26/7038,40

Another one for #AndeanBearDay:

Spectacled Bear Effigy Jar Chimu, Peru, Late Intermediate Period, c.1300-1470 Blackware, 8 x 3.75 x 4.75 in (20.3 x 9.5 x 12.1 cm) Johnson Museum of Art 56.160

The Andean Bear, aka Spectacled Bear (Tremarctos ornatus), is South America's only extant bear species.

For this #Baturday, look what I found to go along with SharkBat: CrocBat! 🐊🦇

Pendant, bat with crocodilian* wings Nicoya, Costa Rica, dated 1-500CE Stone (jadeite?), 1 3/4 × 1/4 × 5 1/4 in. (4.4 × 0.6 × 13.3 cm) Bowers Museum 2002.3.46

*🆔Both the American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) and Spectacled Caiman (Caiman crocodilus) are native to Costa Rica.

For the previously shared SharkBat, see this post:

New research: “Monumental snake engravings of the Orinoco River” | Antiquity | Cambridge Core -

ABSTRACT:

“Rock art of the Middle and Upper Orinoco River in South America is characterised by some of the largest and most enigmatic engravings in the world, including snakes exceeding 40m in length. Here, the authors map the geographic distribution of giant snake motifs and assess the visibility of this serpentine imagery within the Orinoco landscape and Indigenous myths. Occupying prominent outcrops that were visible from great distances, the authors argue that the rock art provided physical reference points for cosmogonic myths, acting as border agents that structured the environment and were central to Indigenous placemaking along the rivers of lowland South America.”

#WorldOrcaDay:

Chilkat blanket with Orca design, Tsimshian (Pacific NW Coast)

Twined weave; warp of yellow cedar bark & mountain goats' wool, weft of pure mountain goats' wool

Field Museum no. 19571 (photographed on display in 2022)