Photographer: Peter Jacob | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International
Rim shard of a bowl with a strongly flaring rim. The object was smoothed, slurried, primed, painted and polished on both sides. The primer and paint are partially eroded. The ceramic has a salmon-coloured primer that is painted red, black and black-brown. The outside of the object is decorated with red, geometric motifs that have a black outer line. A frieze, which appears to be divided into several trapezoidal pictorial fields, runs along the broadly extended edge section. According to Lothrop (1926), they show highly stylised lizard motifs, whose eyes and mouths are particularly emphasised. The flowing base of the wall is marked by black and black-brown bands running around it. The bowl wall again appears to have been decorated with lizard motifs. According to Lothrop 1926: Nicoya polychrome ware, alligator motive, type A. Cultural significance: the Galo and Carrillo Policromo groups (800-500d.C.) represent the first truly polychrome ceramics produced in the Gran Nicoya region. Their design (shape, colouring, individual motifs) is strongly reminiscent of the Ulua Policromo group (950-550d.C.). 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)
