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124 N o t e s o f 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. 36 August 30, 1944 Certain Pottery Vessels from Copan A. V. Kidder Encroachment of the Copan River upon its right bank a short distance below the Acropolis of Copan resulted in the washing out of human bones and pottery. Following this clue, Mr. Gustav Strömsvik, in 1942, trenched into its bank and discovered a number of graves of different periods, and refuse beds of considerable depth, which yielded valuable stratigraphic data. Shortly thereafter Mr. Strömsvik entered service in the Norwegian Navy and he has therefore been unable to publish the many mortuary vessels or to make studies of the great number of potsherds recovered from the refuse. The cylindrical tripods and basal-flanged bowls illustrated in this Note have been selected for reproduction in advance of a more comprehensive report on Copan ceramics because they are examples of widely distributed types that are proving very useful, in the current research of several investigators, in throwing light on the chronological relationships of, and commercial contacts between, a number of important Mesoamerican cultures. Cylindrical tripods have long been considered a specialty, so to speak, of Teotihuacan, and wherever found, they have usually been considered to reflect influence, direct or indirect, from that center. But whether or not Teotihuacan actually furnished the inspiration for this form cannot surely be determined until specimens from all Mesoamerican regions where they occur have become available for comparative study. The typology and the distribution of these vessels will be discussed at length in a forthcoming report on Kaminaljuyu by Kidder, Shook, and Jennings. The basal-flanged polychrome bowl is perhaps even more closely to be associated with an area and a chronological period, namely the Peten–British Honduras region and the early part of the so-called Maya “Old Empire” (the Tzakol phase of Uaxactun and Period II at San Jose). Discoveries of sherds of this type at Teotihuacan by Linné (1942) and of sherds and complete bowls by me at Kaminaljuyu indicate approximate contemporaneity of Periods II or III of TeotihuacanandtheEsperanzaphaseofKaminaljuyu with the above-mentioned Uaxactun and San Jose phases. But the full significance of such finds will become evident only when we have fuller information as to the subtypes of basal-flanged bowls, their distribution , and the exact periods to which they belong. Present knowledge regarding basal-flanged bowls is summarized and their archaeological importance is made clear by Thompson (1939). Eventually the cylindrical tripods and the basalflanged bowls from Copan can probably be assigned to a definite period in the life of that city and one which can in all likelihood be approximately dated in terms of the Maya calendar. This, however, will not be possible until the ceramic, stratigraphic, and epigraphic data gathered by Mr. Strömsvik and Dr. Longyear have been correlated. In the meantime, it is possible only to state that Dr. Longyear (personal information) believes both types, as represented at Copan, to pertain to the earlier part of the Old Empire. This reinforces conclusions based on the evidence from other sites. The paintings are by Antonio Tejeda P. Certain Pottery Vessels from Copan 125 Fig. 36.1d. Cylindrical tripod with cover, in light brown slip leaving incised panels “reserved” in cream underslip. In shape of both body and cover and in possession of light-colored panels bearing glyph like designs , this vessel much resembles a tripod from Kaminaljuyu , but the latter is black and its decoration is on stucco, the “reserved” white panels being set off by a red background (cf. forthcoming report, Fig. 204c). Fig. 36.1e. Cylindrical tripod, polished black, incised decoration rubbed with red (cinnabar?) paint. Largepanelscontainingdoublehook-shapedelements like these and those of g, occur on cylindrical tripods from Uaxactun (information from R. E. Smith). Fig. 36.1f. Cylindrical tripod, gray, lighter gray serpent produced by negative painting. Tripods decorated by negative painting have been ‘reported from Teotihuacan (Linné 1934, Fig. 23) and Uaxactun (R. E. Smith 1936, Fig. 8, no. 5). Fig. 36.1g. Cylindrical tripod, pinkish gray, incised decoration. 36.1. Pottery vessels from Copan. Fig. 36.1a. Basal-flanged polychrome bowl, black and red on orange. The very wide flange, the decoration of the inner side of the...

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