Bottle with hummingbirds, Nazca

source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art...

1–400 CE, Peru, South Coast, ceramic, slip

Double-spout bottles such as this one were used as funerary offerings. They were also an integral part of the ritual consumption of food and corn beer carried out at Cahuachi. The use of bottles with elaborate decoration was related to feasts, processions, and other prestige building activities carried out by high-status individuals and households. Nazca iconography includes a great variety of plants, animals, and more than twenty species of birds. This bottle shows hummingbirds with long thin beaks feeding on flowers painted at the base of each spout.