Carved Stone Metate
Museo Nacional CR

A metate is an ornate grinding stone table with a variety of deity or animalistic shapes or designs.  A metate is a stone used for grinding grain into flour.

Atlantic Watershed "Flying" Metate
Museum Nacional de Costa Rica

Costa Rican Stone Metate - Central Valley
Museum Nacional de Costa Rica

Elaborate openwork grindstones dating from between 500 and 1500 AD are found in most of Central America. They are made of porous volcanic stone and constitute practical objects displaying signs of use. Their shapes and sizes vary according to the geographic zone and time period. They can be small, measuring 10 cm high and 30 cm long or they can measure 40 cm high and between 50 and 90 cm long. Grindstones have a wide concave or flat plate-like surface that was used for grinding grains or preparing food. They come with a cylindrical uncarved rock pestle. Grindstones from this zone are characterized by their intricate decoration as opposed to plain grindstones from other geographical regions.  Elaborate grindstones have animal shapes. Typical Gran Nicoya grindstones (northwestern Costa Rica and southwestern Nicaragua) have a rectangular concave plate featuring a jaguar or parrot face and three pointy legs - two of them located in the back and one in the front.   The head and legs display fine geometrical decoration with openwork in elaborate filigree technique.  The so-called "panel volante" or "panel colgante" grindstones feature a rectangular plate and, under the plate and between the legs, a horizontal panel heavily decorated with sculpture in the round, and openwork technique. Decoration includes complex geometric motifs or animals (mostly birds with curved beaks, jaguars and human figures).   Other grindstones have an oval or rectangular plate with round edges portraying a jaguar head on one side, four feline legs and a twisted tail that rests on one of the hind legs.They are from the Gran Chiriquí region in southern Costa Rica and northern Panama.  There are also circular grindstones that resemble tables or ceremonial benches featuring an openwork base and edges portraying human or animal heads.

Even today, stone metates in the Americas are used to grind maize and other foodstuffs. Certain ancient rituals must have incorporated this activity and required special metates to be created for this purpose. The decorative quality of some Central American metates suggests a ceremonial function. Most are carved in volcanic stone, and bear fretted edges, tripod legs covered with geometric relief and cut-outs, and, at one end, an abstract animal-head motif, frequently a bird's head. The ornament may be related to the owner of the object or to the ritual in which the metate was used. Its function as a surface for grinding maize, a staple food of the region from which they come, links these sculptures with the notion of fertility, a primary concern for an agricultural people. It has been suggested that the ceremonial metate, given its ritual importance, may have also served as a throne for the ruler, for whom the assurance of the fertility of his land and people would have been paramount, though this would only seem possible with some of the larger and stronger built metates.

Carved Stone Metate
Museo Nacional CR

Carved Stone Metate
Museo Nacional CR

Carved Stone Metate - Guanacaste Nicoya

Carved Stone Metate
Barbier-Mueller Pre-Colombian Art Museum

Carved Stone Metate
Museo Nacional CR

Decorated metates carved of volcanic stone originated in the utilitarian forms that were used for grinding foodstuffs, primarily corn, in Precolumbian America. Central American examples, such as this metate (at left), were so extensively embellished that ritual offering table use is presumed. Some authorities believe they had connections to rulership and may have functioned as thrones. Six human-feline or monkey figures on a circular base here support the tablelike plate. Their teeth are ferociously bared and fists clenched. Facing outward, they aggressively protect the space circumscribed by their bodies. Each figure's tail buttresses the elbow of its neighbor, creating a fluid movement from one body to the next and weaving a barrier of defense. Two of them break from the pattern and have a fist to the mouth rather than extending upward. The expressiveness of the figures and visual complexity serve to give the work its artistic import.

Stone heads were frequent finds in Costa Rica pre-columbian settlements.  They may represent trophy heads taken in battle

Few stone artifacts have any provenience, since many were recovered from private collections purchased from looters!

Costa Rican seated figure
Barbier-Mueller Pre-Colombian Art Museum

A Seated stone figure from Costa Rica

(at left) Warrior with Trophy Head, 8th–11th century  Costa Rica; Atlantic Watershed Stone; H. 34 3/4 in. (88.3 cm)

A tradition of figure sculpture that glorified militarism and warriors developed in Costa Rica perhaps out of an increased competition for resources among a growing population. Presented in a rigid posture atop a pedestal base, this helmeted warrior holds a trophy head in his right hand and a short ax in his left. Around his neck is suspended a large pendant that is similar in detail to known objects in gold. There is evidence that gold was considered a protective substance in Precolumbian Central America and that warriors wore their gold ornaments into battle.

Metropolitan Museum New York
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection

Standing Stone Figures

Standing Warrior or Chief Figure possible holding a Celt in one hand and a trophy head in the other

A unique artifact of Costa Rica are these double grip stone statues - apparently designed to be gripped in both hands, they are made of a variety of stones, some highly polished

Stone Mace Head - Nicoya Peninsula

Ceremonial Mace (Club) Head: Bird (Male Curassow?) Costa Rica, Southern Nicoya region, 4th century BC - AD 7th century
Cleveland Museum of Art

Ceremonial Mace (Club) Head: Bird Design - Green Stone

Parrot Mace Head - Guanacaste-Nicoya Region

Monkey Jade Mace Head

Quartz Jaguar Club Head
Costa Rica

Unidentifiable Animal (possibly Tapir) Club Head Costa Rica

Shaman Club Head
Costa Rica

Zoomorph Mace Head - Guanacaste Nicoya
Private Collection

Ceremonial Mace (Club) Head: Feline (Jaguar?) | Costa Rica, Southern Nicoya region, 4th century BC - AD 7th century Cleveland Museum of Art

Frog design Stone Mace Head
Barbier-Mueller Pre-Colombian Art Museum

Parrot Club Head
Costa Rica

Parrot Mace Head - Guanacaste-Nicoya Region 300 BC to 300 AD

Mace Head In The Shape Of A Monkey's Head - Guanacaste

Jaguar Mace Club Head - Ganacaste-Nicoya

Human Trophy Head Club Head
Costa Rica

Avian Mace Head
Jade Museum Costa Rica

Human Head Club Head
Costa Rica

Avian Design Stone Mace Head - Guanacaste Nicoya

Avian Motif Stone Mace Head
Barbier-Mueller Pre-Colombian Art Museum

Parrot Mace Club Head - Guanecaste-Nicoya

Pale Green Jadeite - MACE HEAD circa 800 to 1500 AD

Mayan greenstone or jadeite mace head from the Guanacaste Nicoya region of Costa Rica.  Pale green, slightly translucent stone.  Avian effigy form, probably a parrot or Curassow.  Classic disk shaped eyes and grooved crest.

Jaguar Mace Club Head
Costa Rica

Unusual Stylized Reptile Head Mace Head - Atlantic Watershed

Working Celt, 1st century B.C.–5th century A.D. - Costa Rica; Nicoya
Jade (jadeite); H. 3 5/8 in. (99.3 cm)

Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh

Discovered at the site of Las Huacas on the Nicoya Peninsula in 1903, this working celt of jadeite shows both polished and unpolished surfaces. The unpolished end was hafted.