Gold beaker

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This gold beaker (coco) was found in a grave in the Lambayeque valley of Peru, in an area rich in high status burial mounds. It had been a funerary offering, and may have contained drink for the afterlife.

The beaker has been hammered up from a single sheet of gold, and is decorated with a hammered-up (repoussé) design, made using a mould, featuring three important people holding a spear and a trophy skull on a pole.

This is one of only a handful of gold beakers to have escaped the melting pot of the 16th century Spanish conquerors. It belongs to the Late Chimu period, just pre-Inca, when coastal North Peru was ruled by Chimu kings, based at Chanchan, near Trujillo.

Record details

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• Online ID: 000-100-104-663-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: National Museums Scotland
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  A.1947.170
• Date: Around 15th century
  c. 15th century
  
• Material: 15 carat gold. Inscription: Three warrior? figures wearing ornamental crown, vandyked tunic, large earplugs and holding a spear in the left hand and in the right a standard with toothed boss and crowned skull? above
  Beaker
  
• Dimensions: Body 2.50" H; 1623 grains
  
• What: Beaker
  
• Subject: Metalwork
  
• Who:
• Where: South America, Ancient Peru, Lambayeque, Tucume District, Illinco, La Merced
  
• Event:
• Description: Seamless gold beaker decorated with a design in repoussé of three figures, possibly warriors: Ancient Peru, Lambayeque, Tucume district, from an ancient grave called La Merced, c. 15th century
  
• References:
  • Aldred, C. A gold beaker from Peru. The Scottish Art Review, Vol 2. No. 2, 1947. 
• Translations:
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