A ceramic resonator
The Nasca drum is catalogued as ceramic with slip, dated 100–400 CE. Fired clay preserves painted imagery and a rigid body, making it materially distinct from carved wooden drums.
The museum record anchors these observations, but it does not authorize a reconstructed performance. We separate what survives from what remains uncertain.
Wood and skin systems
The Thunder Elk frame drum uses a shallow wooden frame and leather membrane, with sinew, wire and pigment. Two nineteenth-century central and eastern African drums in the same collection combine wooden bodies with animal skin.
Construction vocabulary helps readers compare objects without claiming that their musical or cultural roles were interchangeable.