Photographer: Andrea Blumtritt | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International
Round-bottomed bowl with extending wall. The object has been smoothed on both sides, slurried, primed, painted and lightly polished. The primer and paint are partially eroded. The vessel has a large break. The pottery has a white-yellowish base colour, which is painted red, orange and black-brown. The lip and the outer rim are decorated with a black-brown band. A raised red band runs along the outside of the object. The inside of the vessel wall has a frieze running around the lower edge, which shows stepped elements. Below this runs a central red band. The base of the bowl is decorated with a crab-like creature. After Bransford 1881: Sta. Helena ware. According to Lothrop 1926: Nicoya polychrome ware, crab motif. Cultural significance: in the Gran Nicoya region, the Papagayo Policromo type marks the beginning of polychrome painting on a white-yellowish ground. The tradition lasted until the Policromo Tardío (1350-1520d.C.). Its decoration shows a strong Mesoamerican influence. This manifests itself in the replacement of lizard and bat themes with depictions of cats of prey and snakes. Some variants of the Papagayo group reached the central Mexican highlands. Crab-like creatures resembling the depiction of the inventoried pottery are known from the Gran Chiriquí region as metal objects (see e.g. MacCurdy 1911). (Künne 2004)
