Rare Pre-columbian Casas Grandes Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit Effigy Pottery Jar (700-1660 AD) | A Rough Corrugated Pottery Jar hand-made to appear as the Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit | Approx. Dimensions: 10.5'' H x 5.25'' W.NotesThe Casas Grandes, Spanish for "Big Houses", occupied the Northwest portion of Chihuahua, Mexico. They are famous for their exquisite ceramics of various forms that they produced in substantial volume. Casas Grandes pottery was finely crafted with elaborate designs. Extraordinary architecture of multiple stories with walls two feet or more thick. The floors were hard packed adobe. The Casas Grandes produced an aqueduct and reservoir system along with a domestic water delivery system. Crops were grown in stone walled terraces that were irrigated through hand-dug rock lined canals. Macaws and turkeys were domesticated and kept in rows of pens within the civic center. (Source, Rarepottery.info)