A large-scale Costa Rican metate (from the Nahuatl metatl) or grinding stone is among the most impressive works in the Arts of the Americas collection at New Orleans Museum of Art.
Works such as this, carved from a single boulder without the use of metal tools, are known as flying panel metates for the perpendicular arrangement of its decorative elements.
The complex iconography showcases a menagerie of zoomorphic representations of owls and alligators on the three legs that surround the central figure of a monkey standing on a crab while holding a feline-headed anthropomorphic staff.
The scale of the work and the representation of these animals in many jade-like green stone carvings found in the region dominated by the ancient Diquís culture underscore the ceremonial importance of the metate, which may have been used as a throne or seating stool for an individual of theocratic importance.
A forthcoming recontextualized installation of the Arts of the Americas galleries will explore the relationship of the ancient Diquís with other cultures from the area known as the Isthmo-Colombian region and extends from the north of Colombia through Panama, Costa Rica and pockets of Nicaragua.
The work is on view in NOMA’s installation of ancient art of Mesoamerica and the Isthmo-Colombian area, located on the third floor.
Orlando Hernández Ying is NOMA's Lapis Curator of the Arts of the Americas.