Between naturalisms and metaphors: the iconic code in body painting at the funeral urns of the Napo phase

Abstract This article presents an iconographic study of the figurative motifs that are part of the pictorial decoration of the funerary urns of the Napo phase (1118-1480 AD) belonging to the Amazonian Polychrome Tradition (APT). It is proposed that these motifs are expressed through different levels of artistic execution, from stylized forms to reaching metaphorical and synecdochical abstractions responding to different processes of cognition. These images have been identified through the concept of iconic code, which, in turn, allows certain inferences about its ontological system. This system is herein described as based on an aesthetic of metaphorical and hybrid beings opposed to naturalistic figurations, in which the snake icon stands out. Similar forms of artistic representation are also found in Ecuadorian Amazonian societies of the present; therefore, an ethnoarchaeological perspective can grant certain interpretative guidelines for a re-significance of these Napo phase intrinsic pictorial figurations.