Nose ornament with danglers

Frequently the nose rings of the Yotoco period in the Colombian Calima region adopted this shape: they were thin sheets of fine gold with winged prolongations and hanging plates. When pending from the septum of an important person, they hid his mouth and a good portion of the face, and in exchange they would be provided with beams of light and a tinkling sound. The beautiful and intriguing embossed borders are a constant style of Yotoco goldwork: probably they mean something we are still not able to decipher. The round danglers were cut out from the sheets and embossed in a convex shape so they could be put back in place, as pendants. They can also be found in objects shaped as jaguars, representing the characteristic spots of the American feline, a recurrent symbol of power. EL