Southwestern USA, Four Corners region, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, area, Pueblo I/Pueblo II (Anasazi) period, ca. 900 to 1030 CE. A truly beautiful example of a painted bowl, black-on-white with diamond and lightning-bolt-shaped motifs around its wide interior. The interior of each black shape is filled with diagonal, narrow lines. Scholars believe that many of these designs were inspired by weather and landscape phenomenon in the high desert where their makers lived. Size: 10.1" W x 3.85" H (25.7 cm x 9.8 cm)

Pottery of this kind is some of the most important found in the ancient Southwest. The Chaco Project, the major excavations of Chaco Canyon (today a National Historical Park that is well worth a visit), recovered more of this pottery than any other style. Chaco was the center of the ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) culture, a vast city of monumental architecture, including massive stone Great Houses of multiple stories and kivas of all sizes. Roads from Chaco Canyon radiated to outlying settlements for hundreds of miles, and it seems to have been a religious, social, and trade hub for a vast region. Today many Native peoples in the Southwest connect their own histories to Chaco, seeing it as a stop along their sacred migrations.

Provenance: private Ventura County, California, USA collection

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#126884

Repaired from multiple pieces. There are a number of penciled notes on the lower exterior, presumably from when the piece was being repaired.