{"id":"BISCHOF1994-001","label":"Asia drilled-monkey bone blade","people_or_site":"Asia Unit 1","country_current":"Peru","historic_region":"Lima Region / Cañete Province / Asia (Omas) Valley","macroregion":"South America","local_name":"","source_term":"bone spatula fragment, reworked as a pendant (1994); bone bullroarer (2008)","source_language":"English","object_description":"Tapering bone blade with a hole drilled near its broad end; one face carries drilled-dot monkeys in alternating pairs, the other dotted starbursts.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"bischof1994_2008_asia_valley_bone_bullroarer","source_type":"academic_publication","source_url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt8741h6k1/qt8741h6k1.pdf","page_or_plate":"Bischof 1994 p. 207 Fig. 10b, pp. 174, 178; Bischof 2008 pp. 137, 141 n. 19","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Asia District centroid for the lower Omas/Asia Valley, near the river mouth Bischof names (1994 p. 174); not a surveyed Unit 1 findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Rows of tiny drilled dots turn this slip of bone into a picture. On one face monkeys stride in alternating pairs, handling what look like trumpets; on the other, starbursts. A hole is bored near the broad end.\n\nIt comes from Asia Unit 1, a preceramic village at the mouth of the Omas River on Peru's central coast, where people nearly four thousand years ago left coca leaves and burned lime, kept trophy heads, and wove double-headed snakes into their cloth. Apart from textiles, the site gave up only three works of art. Henning Bischof, who photographed this one, first took it for a spatula reworked into a pendant. He later called it a bullroarer: its monkeys make music, like the monkeys engraved on the bone flutes of Caral, the great early city to the north.","pull_quote":"On a bone bullroarer from Asia (Bischof 1994: Fig. 10b), monkeys handling trumpet-like instruments are associated with music, as on the Caral flutes.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Bischof 2008, p. 141 n. 19","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. 1800 BC","date_qualification":"Late Preceramic site context at Asia Unit 1; the blade is not directly dated.","date_basis":"site_horizon","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"Bischof 1994 p. 207 Fig. 10; Torres 2008 p. 245, after Engel 1963:77","sources":[{"citation":"Henning Bischof, 'Context and Contents of Early Chavín Art', in W. J. Conklin and J. Quilter (eds), Chavín: Art, Architecture, and Culture (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2008), pp. 137, 141 n. 19; C. M. Torres, same volume, p. 245","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt8741h6k1/qt8741h6k1.pdf"},{"citation":"Henning Bischof, 'Towards the Definition of Pre- and Early Chavin Art Styles in Peru', Andean Past 4 (1994), pp. 174, 178, 207 Fig. 10b","url":"https://maine.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/delivery/01MAINE_INST:SD/12525391320008681?lang=en&viewerServiceCode=AlmaViewer"}],"source_citations":"Henning Bischof, 'Context and Contents of Early Chavín Art', in W. J. Conklin and J. Quilter (eds), Chavín: Art, Architecture, and Culture (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2008), pp. 137, 141 n. 19; C. M. Torres, same volume, p. 245; Henning Bischof, 'Towards the Definition of Pre- and Early Chavin Art Styles in Peru', Andean Past 4 (1994), pp. 174, 178, 207 Fig. 10b","source_display":"Henning Bischof, 'Context and Contents of Early Chavín Art', in W. J. Conklin and J. Quilter (eds), Chavín: Art, Architecture, and Culture (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2008), pp. 137, 141 n. 19; C. M. Torres, same volume, p. 245; Henning Bischof, 'Towards the Definition of Pre- and Early Chavin Art Styles in Peru', Andean Past 4 (1994), pp. 174, 178…","date_citation_display":"Bischof 1994 p. 207 Fig. 10; Torres 2008 p. 245, after Engel 1963:77","object_display":"Tapering bone blade with a hole drilled near its broad end; one face carries drilled-dot monkeys in alternating pairs, the other dotted starbursts.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"asia unit","display_name":"Asia drilled-monkey bone blade","image":{"full":"assets/objects/promotion_two_2026_10_19/BISCHOF1994-001_asia.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/promotion_two_2026_10_19/BISCHOF1994-001_asia_thumb.jpg","alt":"Line drawing of two faces of a tapering bone strip with a round hole at the left end; one face shows dotted monkey figures, the other dotted starbursts between dotted bands.","credit":"Henning Bischof, Andean Past 4 (1994), p. 207, Fig. 10b","source_page":"https://maine.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/delivery/01MAINE_INST:SD/12525391320008681?lang=en&viewerServiceCode=AlmaViewer","caption":"Both faces of the Asia bone blade: drilled-dot monkeys above, starbursts below."},"slug":"bischof1994-001-asia-unit-1"}