Pre-Columbian, Dominican Republic, Taino, ca. 800–1500 CE. A weighty cylindrical grinding implement, hand-shaped from a dense gray stone and polished by long use into a smooth, river-pebble silhouette. The elongated form tapers gently at one rounded terminus while the opposite end broadens, the surface bearing a soft patina earned through repeated contact with a metate or mortar. Faint pitting and a powdery accretion across the body record both its mineral origin and its working life within a domestic Taino household. A small adhered paper label, likely a relic of older collection inventories, persists near the midsection.

Among the Taino peoples of the Greater Antilles, the mano served as the upper grinding stone paired with a flat or basin metate, indispensable for processing cassava, maize, and pigments. Such tools were quotidian yet essential, mediating the daily transformation of raw harvest into nourishment and ceremonial preparation. The simple geometry belies the patient skill required to peck, abrade, and burnish a stream cobble into so balanced a tool, and the smooth working surface preserves the touch of generations of hands. Size: 2.7" D x 11.3" L (6.9 cm D x 28.7 cm L).

Provenance: ex-private collection, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, USA, collected from 2010 to 2015; ex-F.T. Wilteer collection, Roscoe, New York, USA

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Item # 198290

  • Condition: Fair. Chips, nicks, and abrasions commensurate with age. Old collection label from F.T. Wilteer M.D. of Roscoe, New York on one side.

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by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
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