This culture inhabited the present day province of Chimborazo in the central Ecuadorian Andes. Their material legacy is found particularly in ceramic pieces for daily use, saucers with tall feet decorated in white and red. Ceramics that may have had ceremonial purposes have been found, among them pitchers, glasses and vessels made by ceramicists with a command of the human form. Some cups represent the human head.
There is an abundance of tall-necked pitchers upon which faces are represented adorned with earrings and necklaces. The rest of the body is reproduced on the vessel’s belly, upon which the ceramicists used small ropes of clay to make designs of arms and hands.
Among the Puruhá metal not only served to make personal adornments and items with a golden staff of command that illustrated power, it was also employed for daily use items, such as hunting spears and weapons, propellants, spear darts made of chonta wood bathed in gold, copper hatchets and arrow points, and items made of silver.Â
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