From the Regional Development Period (500 B.C.E. – 500 A.C.E.) onward, the production and use of seals, and stamps used to make personal decorations like tattoos, was spread, and also perhaps the decoration of textiles. Today these objects are found mostly on the north coast, and to a smaller degree in the mountains.
They were generally bathed in vegetable or mineral-derived paint and then imprinted on flat surfaces. They were formed out of clay and sculpted before the firing process.
The seals, round or cylindrical, had various designs: human, vegetable, animal, and, especially among the Jama-Coaque culture in Manabà Province and the Tolita in the province of Esmeraldas (500 B.C.E. – 500 A.C.E.), geometrical and highly abstract designs. In later epochs the Manteño-Huancavilca (500 -1532 A.C.E.) designed flat seals in rectangular and triangular shapes with handles. |
