Collection record · Objects & craft
Big-Eared Brown Bat Vessel
The collection record classifies this work as ceramic. It is dated 200–850 CE. Recorded culture or place: Central Andes, North Coast, Moche people.
Explore the object recordOBJECT RECORD
A closer look at the details.
- Museum title
- Big-Eared Brown Bat Vessel
- Date
- 200–850 CE
- Culture / origin
- Central Andes, North Coast, Moche people
- Materials and technique
- ceramic, slip
- Dimensions
- Overall: 18.4 x 17.7 x 15.8 cm (7 1/4 x 6 15/16 x 6 1/4 in.)
- Artist / maker
- Not specified by the museum
- Museum
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession number
- 2005.6
FROM THE MUSEUM
In the museum’s words
The following description is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original English record.
This bat, perhaps shown opening its wings before taking flight, illustrates Moche artists’ keen interest in realism and in capturing activity at its peak. Moche bat symbolism may be linked to the animal’s paradoxical traits—for instance, bats fly but have fur rather than feathers. Such traits may have caused the Moche to link bats with transitional states, such as the passage between life and death. The vessel depicts a member of the Histiotus mochica species, a big-eared brown bat that researchers described in 2021 and, due to this vessel, named in honor of the Moche, also known as the Mochica.
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Text and image sources
The Cleveland Museum of Art · John L. Severance Fund · CC0
The summary is based on public collection data. Refer to the museum’s latest record for the title, date and attribution.
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