FAQ
Kero Cup. Peru. Colonial Inca artist, late 17th–18th century. Wood with pigment inlay, 7 7/8 x 6 1/8 in. (20 x 15.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, 42.149
Wooden cups known as keros are among the most characteristic forms in colonial Andean art, although they were widely used before the Conquest. Keros, made and used in pairs, were employed to drink chicha, or maize beer, in ritual drinking ceremonies; the use of pairs reflected the important Andean concepts of duality and reciprocity. Before the Conquest, Andean people decorated ceramic, metal, and wooden keros with geometrical designs, but during the colonial period they began to decorate cups with pictorial scenes by inlaying pigments in the wood.
The upper and lower registers of this exceptionally well-preserved kero cup present two different figural scenes, rather than the more common combination of one figural scene with bands of flowers and/or geometric motifs. Three relief bands around the middle of the cup separate the two registers, another unusual feature.
In the top register, two Inca battle three face-painted Antis or Chunchos, tropical lowland enemies wearing spotted jaguar-skin tunics and feathered headdresses. An Inca warrior wearing a checkerboard tunic leads one of the defeated Chunchos toward a castle and a seated Inca, possibly the emperor himself. The lower register contains an agricultural scene, possibly a ceremony, with two men guiding plows, each drawn by a team of two oxen. Each man is followed by a woman, one planting seeds and the other holding a pair of kero cups. The Inca and Anti battles depicted on kero cups are also associated with ritual battles fought in the Andes after the Conquest and up to the present day. These ceremonial battles, which included much drinking, took place before the harvest season and were therefore associated with agriculture and fertility. This cup makes the connection between battles and agriculture explicit by juxtaposing the two themes.
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum