Cupisnique Bowl

The bowl comes from the Cupisnique Culture, one of the most relevant of the Northern Coast of Peru. The artifact shows a scene from the magical-religious world of the Cupisnique: a multiple sacrifice in a context of sciamanic ecstasy. In fact, on the outside a figure is depicted in high relief with a frontal body and a head in profile facing upwards from which a gush of blood comes out; the eccentric pupils represent the ecstasy achieved through psychotropic substances. The figure holds ribbons to which some tied heads are cut off. The bowl is covered with cinnabar, a poisonous mercury sulfide, often used in ritual artifacts and funeral offerings among the Cupisnique and other American Native cultures.