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.  Metates, table-like objects of stone used in Ancient America for the grinding of foodstuffs such as corn, underwent particular elaboration in Central America, where they took on special meanings as well as unusual sculptural forms. These new meanings are thought to be based on the original function of the metate as a tool: like the transformation of the workaday celt into a special ornament, the grinding table became a ritual object. The typical metate's three supporting legs are frequently embellished with complex carvings of a wide range of imagery, while on the underside many times is carved elaborate supportive design, and with a animal zoomorphic head.  These types of elaborately carved metates have been discovered in burials associated with jade and gold object offerings.

Grinding stones (metates) are usually carved of basalt. Most often they consist of a simple curved platform supported by three legs. They range in length from about two to four feet. The type most commonly collected is elaborately carved with geometric or anthropomorphic motifs on the legs and sides. Sometimes an effigy head, such as a bird or other animal, is added to one end. These are known to occur in the Pacific coastal area and the islands in Lake Nicaragua.

Also visit www.PrecolumbianJade.com for many more examples of Celts

Small highly polished spherical or oblong objects of various kinds of stone, with a hole through the center. Mace heads are frequently in the form of animal or human heads, or with geometrical designs carved into the surface. Their maximum dimension ranges from about two to six inches. They are best known from the Pacific coastal area.

Also visit www.PrecolumbianJade.com for many more examples of Mace Heads

The largest and most advanced of Nicaragua's indigenous people, the Chorotegas (which translates to "fleeing people") migrated around A.D. 500 from Southern Mexico into the Nicoya Peninsula to escape slavery. Their customs, language and calendar were largely influenced by more advanced cultures of Mexico and Guatemala. The influence of the Mayans was evident in their written language and use of a calendar, while their spoken language, Nahua, is distinctly Aztec in origin.

The Chorotegas excelled at farming, growing abundant harvests of corn, as well as cotton, beans, fruits and cacao. The latter was originally introduced to Costa Rica by the Chorotegas, and they used its seeds as currency. The land was communally owned and harvests were divided according to need. This assured that even those unable to maintain crops, such as widows or the elderly, were provided for.

Like most of the advanced, early Latin American civilizations, the cities of the Chorotegas often featured central plazas with a marketplace and religious center. As many as 20,000 people may have populated a single city, and entire clans lived in longhouses constructed of wood with thatched-roofs.

Ceramic art was a very important facet of Chorotegas culture and was primarily practiced by women. Ceramic objects were customarily painted in black and red, then decorated with serpents, crocodiles, monkeys and jaguars.

The Chorotegas maintained an organized military which fought to protect their territory and generate a source of slaves.

Sacrificing slaves for religious purposes was fairly common, and virgins were often sacrificed by throwing them into the craters of volcanoes. In addition, as a purification rite, the sacrifice human was often eaten.

These seated, standing or columnar stone statues are characteristic of the islands in Lake Nicaragua and the Chontales and Rivas areas around the lakes. Made of well-finished basalt, they reach up to four meters in height. Some examples may date earlier than 800 A.D. The most characteristic subject is a human figure and an associated animal. The animal is either lying on the back and shoulders of the human figure or an animal head resting on top of the human head. Other subjects include human figures sitting on a column or with arms bent across the chest.

 

The Museo Arqueológico
Gregorio Aguilar Barea,
Juigalpa Chontales, Nicaragua

The museum houses dozens of Chontales Statues

Museo Arqueológico
Gregorio Aguilar Barea,
Juigalpa Chontales, Nicaragua 

Ometepe Island Alter-Ego Stone Statue
 

for more information
about Ometepe visit www.lasuerte.org

Stone statue and petroglyph from Isla del Muerto Nicaragua

The statues of Isla Zapatera, Granada

A relatively undiscovered, almost forgotten island of Lake Nicaragua, located close to the colonial city of Granada.  With a total surface of 52 square kilometers, Zapatera is the second-largest island in Lake Nicaragua after Ometepe. The island, declared National Park in the beginning of 1983, is an important archeological site for its enormous quantity of statutes, petroglyphs, and ceramic artifacts that have been left there and on neighboring islets.