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All auctions / Ethnographic / Mississippian Shell Maskette Gorget | Forked Eye Motif
Native American, Mississippian culture. A human visage coaxed from the body wall of a large marine whelk, the shell's natural curvature supplying the swell of cheek and brow. Eyes and mouth are drilled through as annular openings, and lightly etched circles ring each eye while paired triangles descend beneath them, the graphic shorthand known as the weeping eye or forked eye motif and one of the signature devices of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. The tapering lower terminal preserves the columellar profile of the parent shell. Maskettes of this type are generally understood as prestige or ritual regalia rather than simple ornament, likely tied to falcon-warrior imagery and the veneration of ancestors, and were worn at the throat or affixed to garments and sacred bundles. The forked or weeping eye ranks among the most widely distributed motifs of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, the shared iconographic vocabulary that spread across Mississippian centers from Spiro in Oklahoma to Etowah in Georgia and Moundville in Alabama between roughly the 12th and 16th centuries. The device is commonly read as the dark malar stripe of the peregrine falcon, a raptor associated with speed, aggression, and the warrior elite, transposed onto a human face. Marine shell was itself a long-distance prestige good: whelk (Busycon) harvested on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts travelled hundreds of miles inland, so the raw material carried status before a single line was engraved into it. Maskette gorgets of this type are typically recovered from high-status burials, where they accompanied copper plates, engraved cups, and other regalia of rank. Item # 205001
Estimate:$350
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorEthnographic
Estimate:
$350
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