Spherical jug with a short neck and wide, overhanging rim. The object has been smoothed on both sides, slurried, primed, scored, painted and polished. The primer and paint are partially eroded. The restored object has several broken and missing parts. The ceramic has a red-orange base colour, which was painted black. On the shoulder is a circumferential frieze consisting of short vertical line bundles and inverted T-elements. The sequence of motifs is bordered by two parallel, horizontal bands. Four vertical bundles of lines start at the lower band and run down to the base. The body is also decorated with four large, inverted T-elements. All black coloured areas are bordered by thin, incised lines. Some bands have incised rows of dots. The inside of the neck of the vessel is coloured red-orange. It is decorated with four opposing, vertical bundles of lines that start on the lip. After Lothrop 1926: Nicoya black line ware, alligator motif. According to Lehmann 1913: El Viejo style. Cultural significance: the type has been documented both in burials and in settlement contexts. It is related to the Tola Tricromo (500-300d.C.) and Las Palmas Rojo sobre biege (500d.C.-300a.C.) groups. The ceramics were traded as far as the Cordillera de Guanacaste and the Atlantic lowlands of Costa Rica. The object belongs to a group of decontextualised objects that Lehmann found in a burial ground near El Viejo in March 1908. There are said to be 480 objects from Huaca A alone. In addition to ceramics, they also include axes, rubbing stones, shells and "greenstones". The latter were associated with inhumations. (Künne 2004)