Tolima Culture Gold Breastplate
2018 © Maxim Tabachnik
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Tolima Culture Gold Breastplate

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This gold breastplate (1 BC–700 AD) from the Tolima culture of the Middle Magdalena Valley fuses feline ears, bird wings, a human face, and a fish-like body, concentrating multiple animal powers into one shamanic form. Such composite imagery embodied spiritual strength and the unity of human and natural realms in indigenous cosmology.