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Chimu Culture 1000-1470
41'5" x 1'7" x 1'7" in.
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This is one of the rarest examples of a rattle staff most usually associated with ritual and shamanic practice, at the top a monkey is playing his musical instrument. The art of wood carving was highly developed during the Chimu reign, and wood sculptures were also installed at entrances to buildings and tombs on the North Coast. Most notably, sculptures of this scale of the present example stood as servants in entries of the palaces of Chan Chan. This vast adobe city, the remains of which can still be seen outside of the modern city of Trujillo, thrived between ca. A.D. 1000 and 1470, when it fell to the invading Inca army.