Location

On view from September 30, 2011 to March 4, 2012, the Museum's latest exhibition presents highlights from three thousand years of body art practices in the Ancient Americas. Piercings, tattoos, scarification, and even reshaped heads were held in high regard in many Pre-Columbian cultures. Such permanent changes were thought to make the body beautiful, strong, and powerful. Often steeped in ceremony, body transformations were associated with lasting changes in the identity of the wearer.

Lasting Impressions presents over sixty objects from the Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Collection and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Human portraits and figurines offer a glimpse of ancient ideals of beauty and power, while jewelry and personal ornaments illustrate some of the many ways in which Pre-Columbian people adorned themselves.