In 1899, a German archaeologist in northern Peru excavated an enigmatic ceramic bottle from an ancient Moche tomb. The vessel’s deathly potato-head chamber is marked by a plethora of human/tuber “eyes” that are further conflated with stones regurgitated from a sea lion’s gut. This replete object, which represents a subject at once human, animal, vegetable, and mineral, bears multiple currents of meaning and manifestations of indigenous knowledge. Though not an “art object” in its own time, the vessel and others like it embodied “complex intentionalities” in the sense of Alfred Gell’s “artwork.”

中文翻译：

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黏土中的魔咒之谜：古代秘鲁的物体知识和艺术品

1899年，秘鲁北部的一位德国考古学家从一个古老的莫切陵墓中挖出了一个神秘的陶瓷瓶。船上致命的马铃薯头部腔室以大量的人/块茎“眼睛”为标志，这些眼睛进一步与从海狮肠腔中反流的石头混合在一起。这个充实的对象，既代表人类，动物，植物和矿物质，又具有多种含义和本土知识表现形式。尽管不是当时的“艺术品”，但从阿尔弗雷德·盖尔（Alfred Gell）的“艺术品”的意义上来说，船只和其他类似物品体现了“复杂的意图”。