Ladd] PARITA AND SANTA MARIA ARCHEOLOGY, PANAMA 135 



occur as do lighter shades, especially on jar bases. The Munsell 

 range is the same as that for Parita Polychrome. 



Surjace. — The sm^face is red slipped and polished, generally over 

 the entire exterior. Exceptions to this statement will be noted below 

 in the discussion of the different shapes. 



Form. — Shapes include plates or shallow bowls with plain, ring, or 

 pedestal bases, deep open bowls with and without incurving rims, jars 

 with and without collars, bottles, bird effigy jars, and miscellaneous 

 shapes such as pot covers. 



1. Plates. — (a) Unmodified base. — Only two certain examples of plain or 

 rounded based plates were recovered at the site. One of these, Find 372-27, was 

 10 cm. in diameter, had two opposed loop handles extending horizontally out from 

 the rim, and nodes along the lip. A similar shape, but with loop handles projecting 

 vertically from the rim, occurred in Smoked ware (Find 372-28) . The other was 

 a miniature (5.8 cm. diameter) dish with unmodified lip. Numerous plate Ups 

 or rims were recovered in the sherd lots which gave no indication of the base and 

 therefore could be classified either with this group or with the ring or pedestal 

 based groups to follow. 



(b) Pedestal based plates. — These vessels range in size from small or 

 miniature (approximately 7 cm. in diameter) through medium (14 cm. in di- 

 ameter) to large or about 24 cm. in diameter. The entire exterior is generally 

 covered with a polished red sUp although in some of the smaller examples the 

 underside of the plate may be unslipped. Lips are unmodified. 



On the basis of the occurrence of whole vessels it is possible to break this group 

 down into two subgroups: (1) medium to large plates with tall slender bases 

 which flare out markedly at the rim or foot (fig. 51, g), and (2) smaller to miniature 

 plates with broader shorter pedestals (fig. 51, h). 



(c) Ring-based plates. — As represented by a number of examples from 

 Find 347, a grave unit, ring-based plates at the site are small to medium in size 

 (13-15 cm. in diameter) with unmodified lips and a polished red slip usually over 

 the entire exterior except for the extreme basal portion. Numerous ring bases, 

 presumably belonging to plates, were present in the sherd lots. 



A rather unusual form, a ring-based plate with a loop handle (often oval in 

 cross section) extending from the center of the plate to the rim (fig. 51, d, e) and 

 with a diameter of 18 cm., is represented by Find 354-1. In this case the lip is 

 unmodified and the handle missing, although locations of attachment are present. 

 A few handles and base fragments of larger vessels of the same type were present 

 in the sherd lots from Mound III. 



2. Shallow open bowls. — Plain rimmed shallow bowls on pedestals are rare in 

 the collection. One whole vessel, a medium-sized bowl with a short pedestal 

 was found in Mound III (fig. 51, c), and occasional shallow bowl rims with flat- 

 tened lugs on the exterior just below the lip occurred. One bowl sherd with a 

 lobed rim was recovered in Trench 5 (fig. 51, i). 



Open bowls with median flanged rims (fig. 51, /) and either pedestal or tripod 

 bases (actually small lugs) were represented in both the sherd lots and in Mound 

 III. This shape also occurs in Smoked ware. Slashed nodes on the rim exterior 

 are present on one example. 



3. Open bowls with angled or incurved rims. — These vessels are known by • 

 photographs of two complete vessels, both in Panama, and by a number of large 

 rim fragments from Mound III and two miniatures (Find 372-15, 19) which are 



