15g A STUDY OF CHIRIQUIAN ANTIQUITIES. 



photograph, but his two figures are of necessity full of slight inaccuracies. Like 

 the rest of the polychrome series, except the first specimen, 1 this came to Yale with 

 the de Zeltner collection. 



The shallow bowl, which has a diameter of over twenty-seven centimeters, is 

 mounted on a hollow perforated stand that gives to the whole a height of about 

 nineteen centimeters. The thickness of the walls varies. The rim of the bowl 

 is ten millimeters thick, but this thickness is soon reduced by half as the center 

 is approached. The same is true of the stand, the walls of which are thickest 

 at the base and grow thinner rapidly toward the top. Of the four longitudinal 

 slits like elongated triangles that pierce the walls of the stand, the alternating 

 ones point in opposite directions. These openings were cut before the surface 

 was polished or painted. The stand is in excellent condition, but the bowl had 

 been not only severed from its support but also broken into several pieces. 

 These had been put together in an indifferent manner while still in de Zeltner's 

 hands, and the beauty of the designs had been much marred by repainting. By 

 means of alcohol, which luckily does not affect any of the original colors (cream, 

 black, red and purple), I have removed all such painted restorations. 



This is the only vessel in the Yale or any similar collection, where every 

 visible part has been carefully decorated, the interior of the hollow stand only 

 excepted. The ground is a cream-colored slip. Black is the color chosen for all 

 the outlines and for the minuter details. It is everywhere applied with a very 

 fine-pointed brush or instrument, the lines, whether straight or curved, being drawn 

 with precision. Red and purple are used alternately as mass colors, always on 

 spaces that are outlined in black. 



The ornamentation of the base consists of a lower horinzontal red band contin- 

 uous with two spirally ascending red band, and a horizontal purple band at the 

 top continuous with two spirally descending purple bands alternating with the 

 ascending red bands. These four bands pass directly over the four openings. 

 The designs on the intervening spiral panels resemble the herring-bone pattern, 

 two pointing upward and two alternating with these, pointing downward. Thus, 

 the balance in the use of color as in the design is everywhere maintained. 



The exterior of the bowl (fig. b) is decorated as follows : A short distance above 

 the top of the stand, there is a red band and above this a broad zone limited 

 above and below by black bands. Within this zone are what appear at first sight 

 to be four panels or compartments, each enclosing an alligator's head. This, in 

 fact, is the interpretation de Zeltner 2 put upon them when he said : — "La partie 

 inferieure de la coupe est divisee en quatre compartiments, dont chacun renferme 

 un dragon paint en noir et rouge sur fond blanc ; les encadrements sont tantot 

 rouges, tantot violets." A more minute observation proves that they are not panels 

 (four) at all. The entire design resolves itself into two units of the classic fret. 

 The ends of each fret are linked with alligator heads, which face each other, one 

 being of necessity inverted. Holmes has already pointed out the derivation of 

 the fret from the body-line of the alligator. In the present instance, we have a 



1 This pitcher with broken handle formed a part of the McNiel collection. 

 * Op. cit, 9, 10, 



