Stylized Tairona Bird Pendant
2018 © Maxim Tabachnik
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Stylized Tairona Bird Pendant

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This stylized bird pendant, crafted in a gold alloy by the Tairona (900–1600), reflects the sacred role of animals in their cosmology. Birds symbolized flight between worlds—linking earth, sky, and spirit realms. Such pendants, worn in life or ritual, embodied protection, status, and ancestral connection in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.