Hi Everyone,
Occasionally we receive requests for help identifying an artifact of unknown origins, so we are hoping some of you may have expertise that could help.
The below item is a small gold wrought object that appears to depict an eagle that has been shot through its head causing the eyes to be displaced. The feet are bound and it may once have opened to be some kind of cuff ornamentation for a bow or something else.
The item was purchased from a seaman over 100 years ago, but its origin is unknown.
Has anyone seen something similar? Can anyone identify what culture this may belong to?
Thanks,
April
nothing great, but i found this tattoo design that hard similar features, but who knows the origins of it:
http://www.tattoostime.com/images/260/eagle-and-arrow-tattoo-design.jpg
love, light and blessings
AB
If we look at the eagle's eyes as simply being of an unusual design and take the head as being above the shaft, the eagle then has the arrow piercing it's breast. This would mean that it ties directly with the tale of Heracles and his encounter with Prometheus. Heracles took out the bird before it was able to carry out its gruesome task of eating the Titan's liver. This appears to have been quite a popular motif for heraldry and, further back, Greco-Roman coins.
From the same assumption about the arrow being through the breast, there is also the fable of Aesop. This is the most likely candidate and explains the bulging orbit. In the fable, an eagle is astounded to see that the arrow that has fatally wounded it was furnished with its own discarded feathers.
The fact that the arrow is facing the opposite way to the one we would expect allows the artisan to place the bird's head close to the shaft feathers and perhaps pick out the eyes to further alert us to the subject matter.
None of this helps date the thing, I know. But perhaps might be useful if anyone else can pin down the striking design.
Hope this helps and acts as a further apology for my terribly grumpy post yesterday.
April can you post a little larger picture? If you like I can put it on Pinterest maybe some one will recognize it but I will wait to hear from you. I have searched and can find nothing on it.
I went ahead and posted this on Pinterest.
Still have nothing on this. I guess it remains a mystery.
The contributions to this website and forum are phenomenal, I am excited to learn and grow more. I have no information on this but I am hoping someone will take the time to look again after seeing this comment (bump)
I have seen many tattoos with the Eagle peirced by an arrow and it does, seeming, fit with the liver story.
If it shows no joins and its made by the loss wax method it is a Muisca piece from South America.
Muisca pieces are circa 500 years old.
Dr. Derek Cunningham
Author of:
The Map that Talked - How astronomy was used to map the ancient world
The Babel Texts - Decoding the early text of the Stone Age
Scotland and Shakespeare's Third Prophecy - Recovering Scotland's Forgotten past
Can you supply a better image?
What I can tell you:
It is not Muisca, true, they used lost wax but this looks like a combination of several other methods.
A broach because of the hinge and trap, and is moste likely made from a sailors colar device or even a stripped down coin.
Just throwing an idea out there......Could it be a Muisca piece converted into a broach...
If the individual links making up the chainwork are all complete circles with no joins it is suggestive of Muiscan technology.....the piece is also small enough to be Muiscan.
I would recemmend calling the Museum of Gold to see if the Curator there could have a look at it.
Dr. Derek Cunningham
Author of:
The Map that Talked - How astronomy was used to map the ancient world
The Babel Texts - Decoding the early text of the Stone Age
Scotland and Shakespeare's Third Prophecy - Recovering Scotland's Forgotten past