2-726-637 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Cross-Shaped Ornament, c. 500-200 BC. There seems to be a link between Chavín religion and appearance of the Andes’ first large precious-metal objects, made using revolutionary new metallurgical processes. Chavín may have developed these technical innovations to express the inexpressible, the "wholly other" nature of its religion. In many areas, elite men and women wore the ornaments as emblems of their ties to this religion, and eventually were buried with them. These 16 objects, along with three others not in the museum’s collection, are said to have come as a group from Chavín itself.