Rotating disk

The attractive metal discs in the graves in Nariño aren’t chest plates. While the latest hung suspended from the neck with a cord threaded through one or two holes near the upper edge of the object, the discs have one sole orifice exactly in the centre. Many chest plates are decorated with a figure (a bird, a jaguar, a face) thus giving a top and a bottom to the piece, but these have geometric figures always with abstract shapes exhibiting a radial shinning polish and a geometry constantly revolving around the centre hole. What are they?

The original cotton thread in the centre of this piece is the key to figure out a hypothesis on these pieces exclusively found in Nariño. They have a knot on the lower part which is extended to the top. If we hold the upper side with one hand and turn the disc with the other, these, as kinetic art pieces of the XX century, combine the reflections of light with the movement of their perfect motives. As the thread gets twisted, inertia would stop … and then it would turn in the opposite direction. Shamanism, the Indian American religion, used light flashes and repetitive mantras to concentrate and access other forms of consciousness. The spinning discs of Nariño could have been an archaic technique of ecstasy. EL