Photographer: Andrea Blumtritt | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International
Two-limbed object in the shape of an alligator carrying a deep bowl on its back. The hollow, thick-walled ceramic has four legs with rattle balls and narrow, vertical openings. The body of the sculptured creature is decorated with bean-shaped overlays. The matt object is smoothed on both sides, slurried, primed and painted in polychrome. The primer and paint are partially eroded. The head and tail of the lizard-shaped figure are completely fragmented. The unusual pottery has a white-yellowish base colour, which is painted black and red. The lip of the bowl is decorated with a black band. On the outside of the extending wall of the vessel is a central, circumferential frieze. It is composed of two opposing pictorial fields. They show a cat-like, spotted creature with a snake-like, coiled body. The inside of the bowl wall is coloured red. The body of the lizard-like figure has painted, bean-shaped overlays and two narrow, horizontal openings. The front sides of the object's legs were decorated with trapezoidal pictorial fields showing dots and S-shaped elements. They seem to allude to the fur pattern of a feline predator. Lothrop (1926) discusses the pottery in the chapters Nicoya polychrome ware and Highland polychrome ware. Cultural significance: the object combines attributes of the Birmania Policromo (1350-1000d.C.), Papagayo Policromo (1350-800d.C.) and Casares Policromo (1350-1000d.C.) groups. (Künne 2004)
