Photographer: Andrea Blumtritt | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 InternationalLarge, flat-spherical vessel with a domed base, convex wall and narrowed opening. The object has been smoothed and slurried on both sides. Its exterior is primed, polychrome painted and highly polished. The ceramic has a red-brown base colour, which is painted red and black. The rim and lip are decorated with a red band. Below this are several black lines running around the lower rim, the uppermost of which has a dotted line decoration. The body is decorated with an ornamental band running around the centre. It consists of interlocking triangles decorated with a black grid. The geometric shapes are separated from each other by a wavy band with red V-shaped elements. A wide red band runs along the base. The inside of the object remains undecorated. According to Lothrop 1926: Nicoya polychrome ware. Cultural significance: the ceramics of the Mora group were produced in the north-west of Costa Rica and traded to the Central Highlands and the Atlantic region of the country. It uses design elements (seated anthropomorphic figures with headdresses, mat motif, Kan cross) that are also known from the Maya ceramics (Copador group) of the Clásico Tardío (900-600d.C.). The variant has been documented both in burials and in settlement contexts. Lange (1971) links the Mora pottery with the Bramadero Policromo type (1520-1200d.C.), which occurs in the Policromo Tardío (1520-1350d.C.). (Künne 2004)
Cataloguing data
Diameter: 11,3 cm
Height: 9,8 cm
Depth: 20,2 cm
Width: 20,2 cm
Provenance and sources
Production
Collecting
Assignment to a curated holding:
American Archaeology
Information about the record
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