Greenstone Celt
Santo Domingo or Caribbean Region, Taino Culture,
Ca. 900 to 1500 A.D., Green stone,
Height: 8 inches.

This beautiful celt is made of a grey green finely grained stone that has a rust colored spot.  Smoothly polished to a satiny sheen it is a beautiful touch piece, a delight to look at and hold.  These objects, carved in an elongated teardrop shape with a pointed end were tied to a wooden stick to create a double ended ax.  While certainly the stone would be hard enough to make a useful tool, most of the finely finished examples such as this show no signs of wear, and recent thought is that they were ritual objects.  The wooden shafts have long since rotted away, so we are left just with the ax head.  There are representations in Olmec art of priests holding just the celt itself, so these were not always put on wooden handles.   For me these are evocative abstract sculptures that are truly timeless in their beauty.