Cup with Four Faces

600–1000

Cup with Four Faces, 600–1000. Central Andes, Wari people. Stone with shell inlay; overall: 9.5 x 9.2 cm (3 3/4 x 3 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2019.169 The identity of the four, wide-eyed faces on this cup is unknown. Equally mysterious is the cup’s function. It seems too small to be used for drinking beer at the feasts the Wari sponsored to put others in their debt. The size may suggest the cup was used in more intimate circumstances, perhaps to make libations to sacred forces that animated the ancient landscape. The inlay is made of spondylus (thorny oyster) shell, a form of wealth in antiquity.