Poporo

A Poporo is a device used by indigenous cultures in present and pre-Columbian South America for storage of small amounts of lime produced from burnt and crushed sea-shells.

It consists of two pieces: the receptacle and the lid, which includes a pin that is used to carry the lime to the mouth while a person is chewing coca leaves.

In the early 21st century, the indigenous people of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta still use poporos in the traditional way of more than one thousand years ago.

It is believed the artpiece was found at, and stolen from a burial chamber during the first half of the 19th century, at a place named Loma de Pajarito located between the current Yarumal, Angostura, and Campamento municipalities, northeast Antioquia,[1] during a time when grave robbing at pre-Columbian indigenous tombs (locally deemed as guaquería) was still very common.

[2][3] In 1939 the Banco de la República, the central bank of Colombia, purchased the Poporo Quimbaya, in an effort to preserve it from destruction.