{"id":"PEREZDEARCE2025-001","label":"Pair of incised stone bullroarers","people_or_site":"Tinogasta Geométrico Temprano stone-blade corpus","country_current":"Argentina","historic_region":"Catamarca / Northwest Argentina","macroregion":"South America","local_name":"zumbador de piedra","source_term":"ZUMBADOR DE PIEDRA","source_language":"Spanish","object_description":"Two large, polished stone blades, each pierced at one end and incised on one face. (1) Museo Etnográfico of the University of Buenos Aires, catalogued from Agua Amarilla, Catamarca: 37.9 cm long, 4.1 cm maximum width, and 0.55–0.65 cm thick; rectangular and very elongated, with a smooth reverse and a damaged pierced end that may originally have held two holes. (2) Colección Gnecco 475 (1550), later Fundación CEPPA: a carefully polished slate blade 39.9 × 6.5 cm, with no published thickness or findspot; its intact rounded tip carries one hole above registers of stepped anthropomorphic faces and key-frets.","function_summary":"José Pérez de Arce classifies both as stone bullroarers. González and Baldini had interpreted the same blades as possible sceptres with wrist loops, although they noted that Piece 1 lacks a handle; no acoustic test is published.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"perezdearce2025_noa_stone_bullroarers","source_type":"academic_article_pdf","source_url":"https://www.joseperezdearcea.cl/_files/ugd/163345_219bcd774fa1489bbaacbb3e4adfb3a4.pdf","page_or_plate":"Pérez de Arce 2025, p. 1820, fig. 1914; González and Baldini 1999, pp. 32–36, 51–52, Plate I:1 and I:3","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Agua Amarilla locality anchor in Santa María Department, Catamarca, matching the Museo Etnográfico catalogue provenance for Piece 1. Piece 3 has no known findspot; the grouped point uses the only published object locality and does not transfer it to Piece 3.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Across both blades, human faces dissolve into stepped noses, zigzags and interlocking frets. On the slate example, a stepped H sits directly beneath the cord hole—the same geometric vocabulary that reaches monumental scale in Puma Punku’s famous H-shaped stonework. A 1999 reassessment places the blades in the Tinogasta Geométrico Temprano style, tentatively around 200 BC. In stone this large, Pérez de Arce observes, making them roar would have taken a strong cord and real force.","pull_quote":"Dos ejemplares de piedra se han conservado en el noroeste argentino. Desgraciadamente carecen de contexto. Uno (ME 44.2472) lo pude examinar, es de piedra laja, pulida en la cara anterior, con dibujos incisos y con el reverso liso. Está parcialmente roto. El otro es de pizarra, de forma similar y también cubierto de dibujos incisos.","pull_quote_translation":"Two stone examples have been preserved in northwest Argentina. Unfortunately they lack context. One (ME 44.2472) I was able to examine; it is of laja stone, polished on the front face, with incised drawings and a smooth reverse. It is partially broken. The other is of slate, of similar form and also covered in incised drawings.","pull_quote_cite":"Pérez de Arce 2025, p. 1820","term_gloss":"zumbador de piedra (Spanish): \"stone bullroarer/buzzer,\" Pérez de Arce's own classification term for both blades.","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":"assemblage","date_display":"c. 200 BC","date_qualification":"Tentative stylistic attribution; neither blade is directly dated.","date_basis":"typological_association","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"gonzalez_baldini1999_tinogasta_geometrico, González and Baldini 1999 pp. 51–52","sources":[{"citation":"José Pérez de Arce, Los sonidos de América precolombina (2025), p. 1820, fig. 1914; Alberto Rex González and Marta I. Baldini, 'Un nuevo estilo arqueológico del Noroeste Argentino,' Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología 24 (1999): 29–58, pp. 32–36, Pieces 1 and 3","url":"https://www.joseperezdearcea.cl/_files/ugd/163345_219bcd774fa1489bbaacbb3e4adfb3a4.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261012235112/https://www.joseperezdearcea.cl/_files/ugd/163345_219bcd774fa1489bbaacbb3e4adfb3a4.pdf"}],"source_citations":"José Pérez de Arce, Los sonidos de América precolombina (2025), p. 1820, fig. 1914; Alberto Rex González and Marta I. Baldini, 'Un nuevo estilo arqueológico del Noroeste Argentino,' Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología 24 (1999): 29–58, pp. 32–36, Pieces 1 and 3","source_display":"José Pérez de Arce, Los sonidos de América precolombina (2025), p. 1820, fig. 1914; Alberto Rex González and Marta I. Baldini, 'Un nuevo estilo arqueológico del Noroeste Argentino,' Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología 24 (1999): 29–58, pp. 32–36, Pieces 1 and 3","date_citation_display":"González and Baldini 1999 pp. 51–52","object_display":"Two large, polished stone blades, each pierced at one end and incised on one face. (1) Museo Etnográfico of the University of Buenos Aires, catalogued from Agua Amarilla, Catamarca: 37.9 cm long, 4.1 cm maximum width, and 0.55–0.65 cm thick; rectangular and very elongated, with a smooth reverse and a damaged pierced end that may originally have held two holes. (2) Colección Gnecco 475 (1550), later Fundación CEPPA: a carefully polished slate blade 39.9 × 6.5 cm, with no published thickness or findspot; its intact rounded tip carries one hole above registers of stepped anthropomorphic faces and key-frets.","function_display":"José Pérez de Arce classifies both as stone bullroarers. González and Baldini had interpreted the same blades as possible sceptres with wrist loops, although they noted that Piece 1 lacks a handle; no acoustic test is published.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"tinogasta geom","display_name":"Pair of incised stone bullroarers","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PEREZDEARCE2025-001_tinogasta_two_blades_composite.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PEREZDEARCE2025-001_tinogasta_two_blades_composite_thumb.jpg","alt":"Two engraved Tinogasta stone blades: a narrow, damaged blade above and a broader slate blade with stepped faces and frets below.","credit":"Composite of the Agua Amarilla blade, photograph by José Pérez de Arce (1986), published in Los sonidos de América precolombina (2025), fig. 1914; and the Gnecco blade, Alberto Rex González, Arte precolombino de la Argentina (1980), fig. 191, p. 247.","source_page":"https://naturalis.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar/entities/publication/468f6956-a737-46c3-9b42-379fd9999537","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Agua Amarilla blade above; Gnecco blade below, with a display fitting at its tip. Composite of separate photographs.","additional":[{"full":"assets/objects/PEREZDEARCE2025-001_fig1914_noa_stone_bullroarers.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PEREZDEARCE2025-001_fig1914_noa_stone_bullroarers_thumb.jpg","credit":"José Pérez de Arce, Los sonidos de América precolombina (2025), fig. 1914, p. 1820; Agua Amarilla photo by Pérez de Arce, 1986.","source_page":"https://www.joseperezdearcea.cl/_files/ugd/163345_219bcd774fa1489bbaacbb3e4adfb3a4.pdf","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"Pérez de Arce’s photographs of the Agua Amarilla and Gnecco stone blades."}]},"slug":"perezdearce2025-001-tinogasta-geometrico-temprano-stone-blade-corpus"}