Joanna Ostapkowicz

‘Treasures… of black wood, brilliantly polished’: five examples of Taíno sculpture from the tenth–sixteenth century Caribbean

Five wooden sculptures from the pre-contact Caribbean, long held in museum collections, are here dated and given a context for the first time. The examples studied were made from dense Guaiacum wood, carved, polished and inlaid with shell fastened with resin. Dating the heartwood, sapwood and resins takes key examples of ‘Classic’ Taíno art back to the tenth century AD, and suggests that some objects were treasured and refurbished over centuries. The authors discuss the symbolic properties of the wood and the long-lived biographies of some iconic sculptures.

“Gods… Adorned with the Embroiderer’s Needle”: The Materials, Making and Meaning of a Taino Cotton Reliquary

with the embroiderer’s needle represent men who were religious and just and known to have conferred some benefit on the people, and were numbered among their saints by the common beautification of the priests and country. The teeth which protrude from their mouths hang from a human skull, which is hidden beneath the embroidery; these images which represent men who became saints ... used to give public oracles to the people, but fell silent all together at our God’s arrival in this country. —letter from Bishop Alessandro Geraldini (b. 1455, d. 1525) to Pope Leo X, ca. 1519 or 1520 (in Symcox 2002:133).

Integrating the Old World into the New: an "Idol from the West Indies"

Abstract The Pigorini cemí is an icon of Caribbean colonial history, reflecting early trans-Atlantic cross-cultural exchanges. Although well documented, the piece has received surprisingly little systematic study. We present the first structural analysis and radiocarbon dating of the sculpture (modelled at AD 1492–1524), and a brief discussion of the materials from which it is comprised. These include indigenous shell and European glass beads, newly identified feather and hair fibres, and the enigmatic rhinoceros-horn mask carved as a human face. We also address the sculptures hidden internal wooden base, which is shown to be a non-indigenous display mount made of European willow (Salix sp.).

Radiocarbon dating wooden carvings and skeletal remains from Pitch Lake, Trinidad

Since the mid-19th century, rare prehistoric wooden carvings and human skeletal remains have been dredged from Pitch Lake, Trinidad, during commercial asphalt mining. Establishing a chronology for these objects is challenging, due to both a lack of stratigraphic and contextual information and the necessity to completely remove any pitch to ensure accurate radiocarbon (C) dates. A range of solvent extraction protocols was tested to identify the most suitable one for pretreating the Pitch Lake artifacts, and then applied to ten wooden objects and a human cranium recovered from the lake. Several of these objects yielded earlier dates than expected, raising concerns that pitch had remained after pretreatment and had affected the dates. Pyrolysis-GC/MS and optical microscopy techniques were applied to material from the human cranium, a weaving tool, and a small bowl. These techniques, as well as routinely applied laboratory quality assurance procedures, indicated that there was no residual pitch within the cranium or the weaving tool after pretreatment, giving confidence to the dates. However, the small bowl was observed to still be contaminated with pitch after extensive pretreatment, indicating that the date is too old and can only be considered as a terminus post quem.