Native American, Southwestern USA, Colorado, Anasazi/Ancestral Puebloans, ca. 1200 to 1300 CE. A fine example of a pottery mug made in the Mesa Verde Black-on-White tradition in what is today southwestern Colorado. The body of the mug is a tapering cylinder, with a circular neck and a wide strap handle extending from below the rim to the base. On the handle and body is a complex design of interlocking triangular and stepped patterns, perhaps meant to evoke the shape of cliff dwellings. The handle has a cutout shape that resembles a gourd. On the underside is a petroglyph-like figure with dots around its head and arms straight out in front of its long, solid torso. This figure may denote the clan who made the mug. Size: 5.7" W x 3.95" H (14.5 cm x 10 cm)
Vessels from this tradition were made from a gray or white paste with angular fragments of temper and this one has a pearly gray-white slip that was then overpainted with a black pigment made from carbon. These were made by people who lived in cliff dwellings like those seen at Mesa Verde National Park - indeed at the Park, there is a large house containing 94 rooms, a kiva, and a water reservoir, known as Mug House because its European discoverers, Charles Mason and the Wetherill brothers, found three mugs hung in one of the rooms from a rope of woven yucca.
Provenance: ex-private Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA collection
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#142929
Condition
Intact, with fine remaining pigment. Small area of surface damage on one side near rim.