RARE INTACT SEATED WARRIOR PRE-COLUMBIAN CERAMIC FUNCTIONAL WHISTLE FROM THE HEFLIN COLLECTION * PC272

Product Description

Perfectly preserved and still playable as it was the day it was first made 2000 years ago, this complex small figural ceramic whistle features a seated warrior.  Amazingly, it has survived complete and unbroken which is amazing considering the delicate parts of the anatomy and head dress.  It comes from the Pre-Columbian West Mexico Shaft-Tomb Culture, found by Dr. Heflin in the 1950's around Jalisco, Mexico.  It was part of the famous Dr. Allen Heflin Collection, formed from his work in Mexico from 1946 into the 1970's.  NO REPAIR OR RESTORATION.  COMPLETE AND PERFECTLY FUNCTIONAL.

The purpose of these small portable ceramic whistles of Pre-Columbian origin is not fully understood.  They were most likely used in either rituals or for communication signaling from long distance, or during combat to relay tactical moves to other warrior units.

The Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition or shaft tomb culture refers to a set of interlocked cultural traits found in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and, to a lesser extent, Colima to its south, roughly dating to the period between 300 BCE and 400 CE, although there is not wide agreement on this end-date. The first major undisturbed shaft tomb associated with the tradition was not discovered until 1993, at Huitzilapa, Jalisco.  It is now thought that, although shaft tombs are widely diffused across the area, the region was not a unified cultural area. Archaeologists, however, still struggle with identifying and naming the ancient western Mexico cultures of this period.