Ritual Spoon Pendant 10th-4th century B.C. Olmec This T-shaped pendant takes the form of a winged oyster (Pteria sp.) represented in a translucent blue-green jadeite. The central part of the asymmetrical T is marked by a depression, signaling the interior of the bivalve, earning these types of works the formal nickname as spoon” pendants. The sculptor skillfully rendered the ridgelike hinge of the bivalve towards the upper part of the spoon. Blue-green jade represented agricultural fertility of maize in Olmec art, thus the sculptor created a layered visual and material metaphor for bounty and marine abundance. The pendant conveyed this symbolic power onto the wearer, and several lines of evidence suggest that these valued objects passed down for generations and were traded widely as luxury goods. Representations of individuals in Olmec sculpture feature such pendants worn as pectorals, and later cultures in Mesoamerican art created similar T-shaped pendants. The T-shape in Maya hierog