104 



A STUDY OF CHIRIQUIAN ANTIQUITIES. 



a wide range in point of form and size. The vast majority may be classed as 

 bottle-shaped vases with globular bodies. Handles are comparatively rare. A 

 number of open shallow bowls are mounted as tripods. Life motives in relief are 

 sparingly used. In only a few instances are these emphasized sufficiently to stamp 

 the specimen as a zoomorphic unit. To the latter class belong a small number 

 of figurines that represent quadrupeds, birds and serpents and serve as whistles. 

 Other forms, including gourd-shaped rattles, are phytomorphic. There are also 

 miscellaneous forms, such as cylindrical needle-cases and double cups with single 

 connecting arched handles. 



The paste ranges from yellowish gray to pale red. The outer surface is care- 

 fully formed and polished. No attention is paid to the inner surface, especially 



of the narrow-necked bottles, the result being 

 that the walls are quite thick in some places 

 and thin in others. This carelessness in the 

 finish of the interior is seen in a bottle broken 

 in the plane of its greatest diameter (fig. 179). 

 The inner surface is covered with what appear 

 to be thumb-marks, a fact which, taken in 

 connection with the position of the break, leads 

 one to conclude that the vessel was made in 

 two pieces. After bringing the two pieces 

 together, the contact irregularities were removed 

 by inserting a stick or pointed implement through 

 the aperture. Marks of this stick are seen 

 along the line of cleavage on both halves. 

 Such an interior was not suited to domestic 

 purposes, an opinion also supported by the 

 wealth of exterior ornamentation and the ab- 

 sence of sooty incrustations. These vessels 

 were valued for esthetic and symbolic reasons 

 and not for their storage capacity or as utensils. 

 The making of narrow-necked vessels in two 

 or more parts has been reported from Peru. 

 Dr. Davis exhibited specimens of this sort at a meeting of the American Ethnological 

 Society. 1 December 15, 1859. One of these " of spherical form had separated 

 itself into two hemispherical halves, by an even, horizontal fracture." ■ 



Sometimes but a single ground color is employed, either a pronounced red 

 pigment or a light to salmon-colored slip. Frequently the two ground tints 

 appear in pleasing combination, the lower half of the body, for example, being in 

 red, the upper half light, and the neck red. Again the red is the true ground, 

 on or in which appear bands or fields of white i or the ground may be white and 

 marked by bands of red. The upper light zone is frequently crossed by bands 

 of red tangent to the neck. But whatever the combination, the red and the light 

 are each and both only the ground on which the artist works out his design. 

 This brings us to the secret of the lost color process. 

 1 Hist, mag., IV, 48. 



Fig. 179.— Narrow-necked vase broken in 

 plane of greatest diameter, illustrating care- 

 lessness in finish of interior. Lost color 

 ware. V» 



