Sacred Foliage Spoon Artifact – 610 BCE | Jacques Vesery

This hand carved, gilded and painted piece is part of sculptor Jacques Vesery’s “Artifacts Series: Art, Sculpture, Artifact or Legend?”, a series of original art objects that represent artifacts from a fictional ancient culture.

These are the “Sacred Spoons of the Pemaquid Rock People”, objects of utility and ritual used by an ancient civilization that vanished thousands of years ago from what is now known as Coastal Maine.  Many of these artifacts were discovered on the Pemaquid Peninsula in cranberry bogs, in mud deposits along the coast and other tidal areas.  Carbon dated between 144 and 2584 BCE, making some three to five thousand years old, they have been painstakingly restored as close to their original condition as possible, yet still show signs of period use and patina.

The Pemaquid Rock People are possible descendants of the “Red Paint People”, as many of the oldest artifacts have similarities to objects found from the Red Paint Period in the Midcoast region.  They too mysteriously died out, but some researchers have found evidence of a possible tsunami that may have decimated the inhabitants of the ancient Maine coastline.  The earliest dated ritual objects tend to be located at slightly higher elevations rather than the current coastline due to change in sea levels.  As more information is uncovered, this new legend will continue to unfold… art, sculpture, artifact, myth… what legends are made of.

This piece is currently at Maine Craft Portland.