The represented image of a gift: The case of the Taltal flake stones.
Archaeological objects are often accompanied by recording units that constitute a corpus of information contained in museums and archives, but also in publications. These scientific writings deal with archaeological objects and collections through images that generally do not give the reader the possibility to physically interact with the photographed or drawn piece. In this context, we have chosen a picture of three flaked stones that appeared for the first time in a publication by Aureliano Oyarzun in 1917, on the discussion about the ‘paleolithic station’ of Taltal. The chosen photograph was subjected to an indexing method that led us to the deposit of the National Historical Museum, Chile, in order to find the indicated pieces. This finding questions us about the meaning of the image and the object portrayed, and, at the same time, questions us about the representational dynamics contained in the photographic image.