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Posted 4 years ago
humhand
(2 items)
Definitely iron oxide designs. Comes off if handled. Has been repaired. No marks anywhere. I suspect used for storing seed of some kind. Haven't had much luck with identifying it. Any help appreciated. It is very large. Perhaps 24 inches wide x 18 high.
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Looks turned, and that didn't happen until honky's ruined their idealist life style.
Oh ! Add "us" before "honky's". LOL . Remember, WLM too. LOL. Hey, I just got put on probation by Quora, so I might as well try on CW !
All I can tell you for sure, is that it isn't from the Southwest United States, nor is it Native American.
The rounded bottom, and the form itself, suggests Mexico. Some of the design patterns are characteristic of pottery from Chiapas, in southern Mexico...especially the scalloped border around the top, and the bulbous, fluidly swooping white parts around the center of the pot.
If the designs were painted on with iron oxide, it appears that it wasn't fired correctly, or perhaps, not fired at all. Iron oxide is very prone to smearing before it is fired, but if fired correctly, it turns a dark reddish-brown and adheres permanently to the pot. It shouldn't smear like this. Or the other possibility is that it isn't iron oxide. Pots decorated with poster paint (popular inexpensive Native American souvenirs from Jemez and Tesuque in the 1930-1950s, for example) were infamous for their designs that had a tendency to be easily rubbed off. Not that this is poster paint, but it could be something else that was used that turned out not to be suitable.
It does look like iron oxide from the photos, though, so lacking any more positive identification of what the material actually is, it probably just wasn't fired hot enough to keep this from happening.
Thanks. Yes the sun flower collar is very distinctive. I am guessing it was painted and left unfired for a purpose. Perhaps when seed is stored humidity might be indicated by the color of the oxide, alerting the keeper of the seed that the humidity was changing. Moisture is the endmy of seeds so having a low fired bisque type ware would allow the moisture to even itself out not just within the pot but with adjoining pots. I suspect they were made to stack one on the other hence the round bottoms and the fluted neck ensuring a pest free seal. I greatly respect the food practices of earlier cultures for they were surely sharp thinkers and never went to excess without it having a utilitarian motive.
I certainly feel the presence of the potter.
Interesting theory. But I doubt the pot is related to seed storage. First, seed jars are small. No one would think of storing seeds in a 24" x 18" jar. Plus seed jars, by definition, have small openings in the top, and no lip. A 5" x 8" seed jar would be considered about as large as practical for actual use.
Iron oxide, however, doesn't change color with humidity, so that wouldn't be a reason the pot wasn't fired. It is a naturally occurring pigment, that comes in a wide range of colors, yellow, orange, red, brown, to black. Each color is very stable. When used onpottery, however, heat will result in a change of color, if it is fired to at least 1000 degrees. I know of no potter, however, who would put that much thought and time into creating a design pattern on a pot, that if left unfired, would be destroyed with use of the pot.
It's unlikely it will be determined why the pot wasn't fired. I have a couple unfired Hopi pots, which I bought directly from the potter, just so I could have an example of what the unfired Hopi clay looked like. (Clay, like iron oxide, changes color when fired.) Perhaps the pot was made for a museum display, or for a similar purpose, just to depict the stages in making pottery.
But again, I'd suggest researching Mexico as a start, as to the origin.
Thanks muchly all. Just to keep the conversation rolling I suspect this pot was used to store grain (corn?). The unfired slip seems to date it very early:
Ceramics in Mexico date back thousands of years before the Pre-Columbian period, when ceramic arts and pottery crafts developed with the first advanced civilizations and cultures of Mesoamerica. With one exception, pre-Hispanic wares were not glazed, but rather burnished and painted with colored fine clay slips.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki
Mexican ceramics - Wikipedia
Iron oxide and colored slip are two separate decorative techniques. Slip is made from a liquid clay, iron oxide can be either a natural or a manufactured pigment.
Being unfired has nothing to do with age of the pot. All pottery starts out unfired. I have a shelf full of unfired pots, made two days ago, drying and awaiting firing, right now. I
t's very unlikely, if the pot is unfired, that it would survive long, however. Unfired pottery, when exposed to water, returns to a lump of clay.
The pot could, however, have been bisque fired, that is fired just to the temperature where it will no longer return to a clay state, and then decorated. That's the process used on most pottery today.
It requires a second firing for the material used to decorate the pot (a glaze, or an oxide. for example) to reach a temperature where it adheres to the pot and changes to a form where it cannot be rubbed off. That appears to be what happened here. Either the pot was not fired to a high enough temperature for the decoration to permanently adhere to the pot, or a second firing wasn't done at all.
The pot itself is fairly recent, wheel-thrown, and based on the decorative design, a modern interpretation of a traditional design.
I can't profess to know clay decoration from unfired iron oxide. The pot has been fired once at least and is. Extremely thin. Not the kind of thing one throws then fires just for fun. It had a purpose. My potting skills are limited but I wonder how round bottomed pots are thrown? Thanks for all the helpful hints.
Round bottomed pots are thrown the same way flat bottom pots are, but the rounded bottom pot will be thrown with the inside of the bottom of the pot more rounded than flat.
After they are cut off from the potter's wheel, they are turned upside down on the potter's wheel to be trimmed. The flat bottomed pot will often be trimmed have a slight foot, the round bottomed pot will, instead, be trimmed to have a rounded bottom, without a foot.
You are a wonderful wealth of info. Thanks so much.
Well I have done a bit of research and my eyes told me the pot had been buried as it had an accumulation of fine crusted soil at the pinch before the lip. It occurred to me that the thinness of the pot was very functional in terms of transposing water. It turns out ollas were very commonly used in gardens either half buried or buried to the neck as a very efficient irrigation method. Perhaps the pot was even slightly cracked during decorating and was ousted to the irrigation pile at the pottery and not fired. In a dry climate the iron oxide would have endured under the soil. It is definitely old. Love playing detective on objet d'arte. Even if I get it wrong I learn a lot.