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No. 30. A Vase from Sanimtaca, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala
- University Press of Colorado
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05 N o t e s o n M i d d l e A m e r i c a n A r c h a e o l o g y a n d E t h n o l o g y Carnegie Institution of Washington Division of Historical Research No. 30 December 20, 1943 a Vase from Sanimtaca, alta Verapaz, Guatemala Elsie McDougall Figure 30.1 illustrates the design of a fragmentary vase, the pieces of which were amongst broken pottery of a cache, unearthed in 1927, at the mouth of a cave called Calajau, in a hill of that name. It was situated on, a property, Sanimtaca, in the Chama region of Alta Verapaz. At that time Sanimtaca was owned by Sr. Gustav Helmrich, who for about thirty years had owned and developed properties from his residential one, Finca Samac, just north of Coban and well into the Chama Valley. The cache was discovered by Sr. Hugo Doege, then employed on Sanimtaca, and his companion, Sr. Rudolf Hesse, who, taking shelter in the cave during heavy rain, commenced digging near the fire they had made. Sr. Hesse’s account of the experience, as supplied to me in 1931 following my brief visit to Finca Samac where I had the opportunity to reconstruct and draw the vase now illustrated, included a rough plan of the chambered cave and information that Sr. Doege had been able, then, partially to reconstruct this vase from the pottery fragments. Before 1931, Sr. Helmrich had found fragments of another cylindrical vase, somewhat higher and more fragile than the one which is the subject of this Note. Of this specimen enough remained to make clear the ceremonial character of the decoration, which was incised through cream slip and painted. On the reconstructed portion, the two standing personages, with spectacular headdresses, loincloths with long ends, elaborate ear ornaments, and necklaces faced an object of which the portion included in the reconstructed vessel was covered with curving plumes. In handling the tray-basket of fragments from the cave, I noted a few pieces of a base and rim of an onyx or a marble vessel with carved design, a type represented by onyx vases from Isla de Sacrificios, Veracruz, and similar translucent marble vessels from Ulua Valley, Honduras. However, as sherds were collected from elsewhere in the cave, the association of these fragments with the vessel illustrated is not certain. Sr. Helmrich, familiar with historical records of the peoples of the Alta Verapaz territory, told me that an important ancient trail through that region and Peten passed over the Calajau hill. Worship practices , of which vestiges have been recently recorded, included propitiation of recognized tutelary deities of certain hills and caves, so that possibly the pottery interred at the Calajau cave may have been an offering to the god of the hill or to the protector of travelers spending the night in what could be the haunt of a feared beast. Description of the technique of the vase in Figure 30.1 depends largely on brief remarks penciled at the time I made the drawing. The walls of the cylinder were 23 cm high and about 0.6 cm thick. The base was flat. The two deities and their adjacent columns of glyphs were molded or carved, the lowering of the ground to panel form contributing to the salience of the four units, whereas the remaining portion of the cylinder walls provided frames for the panels. The rounded relief was slipped with fine white clay, elaborated with incised lines, and highly polished. The ground color of the panels appears to have been a dull red, apparently slipped. The rectangular frames elsie mcdougAll 0 enclosing the figures were a creamy buff, presumably a slip; those around the glyph columns were slipped an orange-red. The terra-cotta color, of which there were traces on the bands at top and bottom of the vase, may also represent application of a slip. The terra-cotta of the base was unpolished, and may represent the natural color of the clay. Traces of turquoise blue paint on the frames of the two large panels indicate supplementary decoration after firing and, possibly, service of the vase. Some trace of paint, bright red, was also perceptible on the white slip of the relief figures. This, too, is presumably a post-firing addition. Although polychrome slipping, sometimes combined with incised delineation, is represented by perhaps the majority of straight cylindrical vessels, on...